Settling In

"...I'd lost "yes" but I still had "no" so if someone asked me, "Are you Thomas?" I would answer "Not no" but then, I lost "no", I went to a tattoo parlor and had YES written onto the palm of my left hand, and NO onto my right palm, what can I say, it hasn't made life wonderful, it's made life possible, when I rub my hands against each other in the middle of winter I am warming myself with the friction of YES and NO, when I clap my hands I am showing my appreciation through the uniting and parting of YES and NO, I signify "book" by peeling open my clapped hands, every book, for me, is the balance of YES and NO, even this one, my last one, especially this one..."

from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Hola weones y weonas!!!!

I've been in Santiago one week as of today, and I can't even begin to talk about all that I've done so far. It kind of feels like it's been a month already. Between all day classes (it is strangely comforting to be a student again, even though I know that I'm only a student for a bit longer before I have to be responsible for my own classes! egads!) and falling into bed exhausted every night, I haven't had a whole lot of time to stop and reflect, which is pretty fome (another chilenismo del dia... I LIVE for these each day at the beginning of class) if I do say so myself.

Plus, I'm really out of practice in keeping a blog or a journal of any kind. The past quarter - okay, all of last year - saw me abandoning writing because I was, in some ways, too busy living to write any of it down. Not a bad thing, but it's a balance thing that I've always struggled with. Honestly, one of the things I'm really looking forward to in the next few months is being forced to deal with a lot of alone time - it is, after all, a society where "soon" has more than one meaning!

I get the sense that there are quite a few things I'm going to be forced to confront, actually.

For example....

1) El frio.

Chile is really cold! Really, REALLY cold! Current layer count as of 8:43 pm, Tuesday: long sleeved shirt, wool sweater, UCLA sweatshirt, black ski jacket, long underwear, "biz caj" pants, socks, rain boots. (It did rain today, to be fair. Cold, but pretty! And it means a hopefully clear day tomorrow!) It takes a good 10 minutes just to get the warm gear on for sleeping: thick pj's, toe socks, leg warmers, sweatshirt (long underwear and long undershirt too, depending on how much of a pansy I'm feeling like that night). Part of it is, admittedly, my thin socal skin, but the other part of it is that, as a country, Chile seems to have discovered neither central heating nor well-insulated buildings. And it will only get colder once I go 5+ hours further south! (Rumor has it, though, that most Chilean families are big on the fireplace thing, which excites me beyond belief!)

The result is waking up to the need to confront the fact that at that very moment I am the warmest I will be for the entire day. Sure makes throwing the blankets off one of the hardest things to do each day! I almost cried with joy when I started sweating in the electronics store today for reasons only partially related to trying to figure out the word for "adapter" in Spanish. (It's adaptador, in case you were wondering.)

And don't even get me started on getting out of the shower.

2) Crying at inappropriate (?) moments.

Lots of this lately, and never about what I would have predicted. Leaving the house and dad was difficult, leaving Mera and Mom at the gate... wasn't? First leg of the flight, fine. Feeling the wheels leave American soil for good? Not so much. Realizing that a stone's throw away from our hostel is a building that served as a clandestine detention center under Pinochet, with tiles in the cobblestone street commemorating people that were disappeared at 19 and 20... being told this by someone who survived it.

I've never been much of a cryer, but man oh man. I'm starting to think it's a travel thing.... I'm starting to recognize it as part of the process of falling in love with a place. Uh oh!!! The last time this happened I seriously contemplated forgetting to show up on the day of the return flight. We'll see how it goes.

3) La comida...

Chile is, somewhat unfortunately, a country with a massive sweet tooth and a love of fast food. This means for dinner, one has the choice between... a hot dog covered in avocado (yes!) and mayonnaise, pizza with or without french fries, or McDonalds/Burger King. Breakfast is coffee or tea and lots and LOTS of bread. We're getting by with lots of homemade-ish dinners in the hostel, but oh lordy alive do I miss vegetables and whole wheat. Soda is everywhere - I fear that I won't come out of this without an addiction to orange Fanta and coffee for those cold, sleepy, dreary mornings and long days at school.

4) Espanol!

My Spanish is improving my leaps and bounds, hooray! I feel like I have a lot more accessible knowledge - not more Spanish, but a lot less caring about how I sound speaking it, which makes that affective filter (yay teaching buzzwords!) come down or at least stay at a manageable level. The smallest tasks become tricky puzzles... but simultaneously become ridiculously enjoyable victories once accomplished! Next challenge: figuring out this....laundry.... issue.... (como se dice "where does one buy heavenly woolen long underwear of many magical properties up to and including curing cancer and keeping the gringa population of Chile toasty-warm"?)

5) Teaching?

Every day is something new to learn that somehow I already knew. Lots of things are beginning to click into place... I remember helping Rocio with something in the class I observed back home and feeling myself subconciously step back into my Covel writing tutor pants. I learn classroom management techniques and know how much more I could have done in Amigos. Our field directors and the current volunteers are an energetic, amazingly caring, formidable force to be reckoned with. So much learning.

I'm SO excited....and terrified. I'm wishing we knew more about our placements, but that won't come for another week and a half - probably literally the day before we are sent to our towns. This town, this place I will be living for the next four months - it could be a tiny seaside village, it could be a bigger city (with my luck the one I'll end up in will share a name with the same place I was so looking forward to leaving...irony!) I'm starting to learn what I can't and don't need to fight. I'm enjoying getting to know my bacan roommates, the five of us reading before bedtime only to groan ourselves awake for another grey day in Santiago some 8 hours later when Jessie's alarm plays us a happy electronic Bach tune. The best moments are dinnertime in the hostel common room, watching everyone cook and drink wine and eat bread and avocado and just sit, somehow not recognizing that we're all goodness knows how many thousands of miles (okay, kilometers) we are away from home.

Time for another bedtime layering routine! Tomorrow I will plan another sample lesson; this one I will present for comments to a group on Thursday. Wish me luck and warm toes!!!

Abrazos,
Meghan