Waiting for my real life to begin

Ohhhh, so bad.

I have a word document full of blog posts I've started (well, not really, mostly just titles) and I'm well over the halfway point of my time in Chile here, and I have nothing for you. Today I'm resorting to copying and pasting part of an email I sent to a friend... but it kind of pulls a lot of things I've been feeling more generally together, complete with clichéd travel-related metaphor! Oh boy! First person to spot it gets a scratch-and-sniff sticker in the color of their choice. (words will not describe how much Chilean high school students go crazy for these, by the way...secret participation weapon!)

***

I'm starting to hit what might be some kind of stride in teaching, and it makes me want to go home so I can learn how to do it right and start moving forward on things, which is good because I have been wanting that feeling (rather than the oh my god I wish time would just stop! feeling) for awhile now. I have officially been in Chile 3 months as of today, and I'm planning to be home in 2 more (a little less than a month and a half left in the classroom, then I get to travel!) It's bizarre how quickly and how slowly the time has passed, and how many things I've seen that I was and was not expecting to see. I'm not in love with Chile, and I miss everyone a lot... I think I wrote an email earlier about feeling like I'm always waiting for something to start or end here, and that waiting feeling is not something I like living. The good thing is that I'm starting to feel a lot less like that, and although I'm not in love with Chile like maybe I was thinking I was going to be, we are still friends, and I feel like at least one of the main reasons I came (to see if teaching is something I can do and enjoy doing) has been achieved. The other things I´ve picked up along the way are a lot harder to name but, I know, no less useful in answering some longings I was having in the past year, or maybe longer, and they are waiting to be packed up in my suitcase to be carried back home with me and unpacked at a much later date. I should probably get going; we have some kind of craziness or other in terms of a school event cancelling classes for the third time this week (potentially a fourth time tomorrow!) this afternoon and, as I´m starting to roll with it instead of judging it, I'm actually excited to see what will happen next. (Meggers might be playing some soccer this afternoon! Oh my giddy godkins.)

****

I´d like to promise I´ll be better about updating, but let's work on making sure I have a steady supply of clean socks and big girl work clothes before we move on to anything more ambitious.

Walking to School

I have class Monday through Friday, and on every day except Wednesday, barring any unexpected changes in the day’s schedule (word to the wise in Chile: always expect the unexpected!) I wake up at about 7 am. I sit in my warm bed and wake myself up slowly with the help of Spongebob Squarepants dubbed in Spanish. There’s something about the surreality of hearing the same lines I can recite word for word with my friend Tierney now coming out of the mouths of Bob Esponja, Patricio, Calamardo, and Don Cangrejo that prepares me for the day ahead. Right after Spongebob is a subtitled episode of Friends, a show which I enjoyed as much as any other North American back home, but now have come to rely on as my gringa escape when needed. By this time I’m getting up, making my bed, and putting on my big girl work pants and sweater for the day.

During a quick cup of microwaved milk with Nescafe and a toasted roll with marmalade, I’m looking at the clock. When the big hand hits the five, I’m off walking to school, buttoning my coat and putting my headphones in, deciding what music to listen to that morning. At UCLA I used to be somewhat judgmental of the people that automatically disconnected themselves from their surroundings with white earbuds jammed into either side of their head on the walk to class, but here it’s become part of my morning routine and the best way to put myself in a good mood for teaching that day. Maybe there’s a kernel of truth about that desire to disconnect – the walk to and from my liceo (high school) is prime time for me to be hit by the thought that I’m living and working in South America, YAY!, but it’s also prime time for me to be hit by the thought that, oh sweet jesus, I’m living and working in South America.

Besides, it’s hard to completely block out the sights and sounds of the walk to school, whether it’s the cars and trucks whizzing past too quickly on one of Yumbel’s two main streets or the construction crews that have been working on paving my family’s street for nearly two months now. I walk two blocks on the main drag and then veer to the left, the road less taken. I pass the house Gladys’ family lives in, and the cute teal house where Don’s and Joanna’s former host aunties live. The view opens up to the green hills of the campo on the fringes of Yumbel right about the same time that I have to cross to the other side of the street to avoid the muddy ditch that juts out into the street. My breath catches each time I pass this way, and I realize I will be kind of sad when the day comes in which that sight becomes something normal to me.

I keep walking past the houses and shops, all assorted colors and shapes – some covered with stucco, some little more than artfully tied together sticks and discarded fence posts. Sometimes someone peers out of their house as I’m walking by, squinting against the sun, or maybe the fog, or maybe the incongruous sight of the gringa tramping up their street in headphones, greeting them with a tentative hola. (In a separate post about the walk back from school, I will tell you about the old man who seems to be parked outside his house by his family each day in a lawn chair, who always seems really surprised when I say hello.)

I fought somewhat hard for the ability to be able to walk to school by myself. It’s about a 15 minute walk and requires me to make two turns, yet for my first week at the liceo, the physics teacher was picking me up each morning as well as returning me to my house for the lunch hour and picking me up again in the afternoon. While I appreciated the gesture, I quickly realized that relying on this ride to school was not going to work if I wanted to have any time to set my room up before class actually started. Even now many people seem surprised by how I do not seem to mind walking to and from school each day. It’s difficult to communicate how it’s my alone time in a culture where alone time isn’t a priority for the majority of people. I still feel lingering guilt over this and try to be extra nice to Profesor Pardo, the physics teacher, when I see him in the staff room.

I’m getting close to school when I start seeing more blue-green plaid skirts, more navy blue sweaters and surly expressions, followed by double-takes, and suddenly, assorted “hello miss!”s thrown in my general direction. If I see Pascualita and Pamela, two of my fourth years, it becomes “Wassup, miss?” and I marvel at the things they remember from my class and the things that they don’t. I turn off my music and tuck it into my coat pocket, as prepared as I can be for another day trying to teach English to my Chilean punks.