Day 21

So I know it has been forever since I wrote, but my excuse is that I have been really busy! Plus, it is difficult to write in English to y'all and then go back to speaking Spanish. More than once I have said things to my host family in English without even realizing it. It is especially difficult when my host sister listens to Adele and all the music on the radio is in English. However, yesterday morning I was thinking pretty well in Spanish, so I covered my ears and turned off the music when my sister put on her Adele.

This past week was not boring, but rather uneventful. I went to class, did a lot of homework, and hung out with my host family and the girls from my program. On Wednesday we went to visit Teleton, an organization in Chile and other South American countries that provides free therapy to children with disabilities. The part that really grabbed me (beside the adorable children) is that every year all of Chile comes together for 30 hours and raises money for Teleton. That is the only thing that is on TV, everything you buy comes with a donation, and little kids come around collecting change. It is at the end of November, so I am really excited to see that happen in Chile, if only to study it for future reference ;). While there, I volunteered to try out this really awesome machine that teaches kids to walk. It totally supports your weight, and then moves your legs for you in the correct way. I looked like Ironman, and learned that I apparently walk like an idiot.

Not much else exciting happened during the week, really we were all just revving up for Fiestas Patrias this past weekend.

Technically yesterday was Fiestas Patrias, the Chilean equivalent of Independence Day, except they celebrate for 5 days, and eat just has much unhealthy food. Its been great! I went to the beach three times, ate empanadas and a disgusting amount of meat, went for a bike ride with my sister and my sort-of-sister Connie, and discovered pebre, which is like a cross between pico de gallo and hot sauce. I love it, I have been putting it on everything. I told my host mom that she has to teach me how to make it so I can eat it every day for the rest of my life.Yesterday we went to a parade and watched literally thousands of military march pas,t not in dress uniforms, but fully ready for battle, machine guns and all. Knowing Chile's history of military coup, I would say it was a little more than terrifying. In fact, Peru, Bolivia and Chile are still in conflict (albeit political right now) over the valuable coastline. Its ok though, my host mom told me that if Chile and Peru go to war while I am here in Peru I am American, and then if Chile wins I am Chilean.

On Monday night my friends and I went to this lovely outdoor party where everyone was dancing the cueca, drinking wine, and chatting. The cueca is the traditional dance of Chile, and everyone learns it from when they are really really young. It mimics the courting movements of a chicken and a rooster, but it is actually way prettier than that sounds. In fact, I pretty much sat there and watched them do the same minute-and-a-half long dance over and over again for two hours and never got bored. A few guys tried to teach us some, here is my attempt:

While there I also got to try a terremoto, which is a special kind of wine with pineapple ice cream. Its like an alcoholic root beer float. It was great, but not as great as the pisco sour :)

Speaking of terremotos, I thought I was in my first earthquake in the early hours of Saturday morning. I woke up to the glass in my window shaking. Just to comfort all my loved ones at home that I have good survival instincts, I looked around saw that nothing was falling, and then went back to sleep. In the morning, I compared notes with my friend Chelsea to realize that we both had the same dream that we were in an earthquake. However, we were informed by real Chileans that it was not even an earthquake, just "temblores" (tremors) and that we better get used to them cause they happen all the time.

So I am now in Tacna, Peru, and I am super excited not only because Peruvian accents are way easier to understand, but because we are going to do some rural home visits and participate in a new mother education program on nutrition. I promise I will write sooner than I did last time to tell you all about it. I miss you all from home a lot, keep sending me prayers, love, and life updates please!

PS: If you are interested in knowing when I post again, just enter your email in at the bottom of this page and you will get a notification each time I post a new entry. 

Day 15

"Tengo habilidades modestas. Combino estas con un gran portión de determinación, y me gusta tener éxito."

"I have modest abilities. I combine these with a good deal of determination, and I rather like to succeed."
~ Sir Edmund Hillary

 ^^My new motto for this trip. On Friday everyone in the program had individual meetings with the program director and the homestay coordinator. I told them that everything was going great, though Spanish is a struggle. I am strangely excited to start working with my tutor on Monday, because I know all I need is a little help with some of the things I can't teach myself, and my Spanish will improve fast. Rossana (our program coordinator) advised all the girls in my program to speak Spanish always, including when we are with each other, and reminded me that that is why I came here. If I go home and feel that I did not give learning Spanish my all, I will be mad at myself for the rest of my life. As she said, "This is it. You likely will not get another chance like this in your lifetime."

After that I went to talk to Aida, the homestay coordinator, who reminded me of what she told me during my first day breakdown: don't sweat it. Relax and enjoy. Seemingly contradictory pieces of advice, but it will just be a matter of working hard and keeping a balance.

For example, all of the awesome classes I have been taking outside of the program. Last night I had bachata, which is such a surprising workout, while being very difficult and very fun. It helps if you have a good partner, and mine was sweet, but I realized how terrible he was when he told the teacher that I was having trouble with one of the steps. When the teacher danced that section with me, it was ten times easier. He told my partner that he was not being a strong enough lead. I honestly could have known nothing of the dance, as long as the guy is good, the girl looks good. Pretty sweet deal.

Then this morning I surfed for the first time (if you could call it that). The waves here are huge, and it is difficult not to get pummeled by them when you are strapped to a large floating plank. It was honestly a blast, and super cheap ($16 for 2.5 hours, with board and wetsuit rental). I'll be going back next weekend :)

My other adventure was trying to party like a Chilean. The bars here don't open until 11 at the earliest, and the clubs not until 2am. But I was determined to try a pisco sour like my grandpa advised me, so I went out after dance class with the girls from my program. It ended up being pretty boring. I never got my pisco sour, and I ended up coming home at 2 (when the party was starting) because I knew my homestay mom was waiting up for me and I didn't want to be too tired for my surfing lesson in the morning. I am probably the only college student in the world who hates the feeling of being drunk, but the dancing sounds really fun and I feel like going to a discotheque is a fundamental part of Chilean culture. I guess I will have to try again another night :)

Tonight I am headed to the centro with my sister to walk around and maybe shop, then to a futbol (soccer) game, which I am hoping will be as crazy as the reputation is, and maybe after that my pisco sour? :) <3

Day 8

Hey all. I hope everyone is doing well. Send me updates on your life please!
We have started classes! I have really high standards for classes and professors, and thus far I am not crazy about the lectures and such. Many of my classmates and I feel that the Spanish classes are not covering what we need them to cover (verb tenses) and are instead covering elementary gramatical concepts that we learned in elementary school. We are talking to our program coordinators, and I already asked for a tutor. I am having a lot of trouble with verb tenses, recognizing them when other people are talking and knowing which to use when, and since we are not doing enough of that in class, I figured I would get a tutor who I could boss around about what I want to learn. I came here to learn Spanish, and I damn sure am going to learn, if it kills me or my program coordinators. My Chilean mom is just as determined as I am, and spends lots of time talking to me and explaining things to me, but the only words she knows in English are "yes," "no," "okay," and "hi." It makes it difficult to go over complex verb tenses. But just you wait, I will come back having forgotten English, I'll be speaking Spanish so well!

I've also had some good chances to see first hand what the vocal Chilean male can be like. Men, some of them grossly old, have said things to us while we walked on the street and a lot of them whistle. It doesn't help that me and my friend are both very pale and very blonde. Yesterday I was sitting outside a cafe with a couple girls from my program (we finally found coffee that wasn't made from a powder!), and I spotted a guy around our age who was walking away from us, but kept turning his head around to stare at us, very obviously. Three minutes later, he is walking back toward us, still staring unabashedly. He kept passing every 3 minutes or so until I waved him over from 100 yards past us. I asked him some questions we were assigned for our homework about the history of the area, and then pretty much dismissed him, because he was obviously just going to stand there and continue to stare. It was pretty funny for all of us. There have been tons of less egregious instances of people just staring at us, especially when we are all together.  there really are not many gringas here at all, I have seen none outside of my program, so we are pretty interesting. We have also taken to greeting the other girls from our group as gringas just because Chileans find it so funny.

Yesterday, my brain got so tired that I could not handle another word of Spanish. With perfect timing, my hermana brought me to her gym, and we did a spinning class and a pilates class. There is nothing for a tired brain like tiring out your body, and I didn't really need to understand what they were saying to me, I just had to follow everyone else. Plus, they played American music. My pilates instructor (a man) was a particular fan of Bruno Mars.

Anyway, I am doing well all around, working hard but doing fun stuff too. We signed up for salsa lessons and on Saturday I am taking surfing lessons with some of the other gringas, then in the evening we are going to a soccer game. I do miss the leaves  turning colors, I love the changing of seasons and they don't really have seasons here.

Day 6

Sorry, it's been a while since I wrote. I hope you have all been able to see my pictures and videos though. I am with my family now, mom, dad, aunt, and sister, 18 years old named Charlott (Charley). Charley has a friend named Connie and they are really sweet to me but like to laugh at me when my Spanish stinks. I got pretty sick today so I couldn't go to the beach like my mom had planned and instead hung around in my bed all day and did homework and slept. I was really disappointed to cancel our plans but they were all super understanding. I couldn't help but feel like I was doing this whole thing wrong. I promised myself that no matter how difficult the Spanish got, or how much I wanted to just stay in and watch Netflix all day, I would keep going out and trying new things. Then, less then a week in, I'm laying in my bed alone all day, sleeping and watching TV. Tomorrow though, I will be out of the house by 8:30, getting my Chilean ID, then taking my Spanish placement test, then lunch with my family, then class, then hopefully joining Charley's gym and signing up for salsa classes!

So, weird things about Chile:
You cant flush toilet paper. Their plumbing isn't strong enough to handle it, so you have to put it in these little trash cans next to the toilet.
They have a cereal called Monkey Balls. Legit. 
It is rude to yawn without covering your mouth, not finish all the food you are served, leave to toilet lid up, or leave the bathroom door open.  Also, utilities are very expensive here, so showers have to be short and never leave the lights on. Heat isn't a problem cause they don't have it. Nor AC.
There are dogs running lose all over the city. We got yelled at by Leo, our program assistant, so many times during orientation because we all wanted to pet the dogs. They look nice, but they supposedly bite.
A lot of the TV here is just American TV dubbed over in Spanish. So far I have seen Up, Toy Story, Hey Arnold, and NCIS. My family thinks its hysterical how funny I find this.
All they styles are pretty much American but a decade or so behind. A lot of the guys are rocking the emo look, wearing all black with long hair and chains on their pants, and Connie pretty much dresses in 80s workout gear. It is amazing.
Hannah Montana and Justin Beiber followed me here. It's not fair. 
They call black tea "te", but chamomile, mint and other kinds of tea have another name and are only for when you are sick. They wont let me drink them whenever. My mom actually took the tea I made, poured it in the sink and was like "It's ok, we all make mistakes," and I wanted to say "No, its not a mistake, its my teaaaaaaa." I think I will have to pretend to be sick a lot.

Now, a couple wierd things about my family:
My sister has a tongue ring and a tattoo behind her ear and her parents have not noticed for 3 months. She does nothing to hide it either. Like, she had her hair up all day and I am just waiting for the screaming to start, but they never noticed. And its not like her mom pays no attention to her. They are all very affectionate. Crazy. I just hope there is no fight, at least that I am here for. Awks.
They think it is so weird that I walk around the house in socks or in bare feet. Every time I do it they point and go "typical gringa!"

So, I am loving it here! I am learning lots, and tomorrow classes start, so I am sure I will be learning lots more there. I hope to post more frequently, but I can't make promises. Email me and let me know how all you are doing at home!