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.