Country Living

After having lived in Santiago with my new host family for a little over a week now, I can see more clearly than ever that - as several people warned me - the campo (country) and the ciudad (city) really are two different worlds. So before I delve into the habitat I'll call home in the coming months, I'd like to talk a bit about the country life I left behind.

In Rabones, all of us students in the pre-program (or gringos, as we've come to affectionately call ourselves) lived in a sort of retreat center in male/female dorms and took classes together. We learned about Chile, struggled to talk Spanish more often, went on trips, did activities, and generally got to know each other better. We had structured activities and mealtimes (a quick shout-out to Don Fernando and Doña Mariana, two amazing cooks) but classes were informal and our days were filled with conversation, games, and casual hanging-out. For me, it was sort of like going to summer camp again. Except going out to the "kickball pitch" at night to drink in the light of the moon - I definitely did not do that when I was ten :).

After ten days in Rabones, we packed up our stuff and rode the bus to San Dionisio to live with individual campesino host families. Not surprisingly, this provided a whole new set of challenges: comprehending the Spanish spoken to us and around us, making ourselves understood in return, and navigating our way through the (often unspoken) norms of Chilean culture. It was definitely a tough transition for me, for several reasons. First, it was legitimately scary to have all my supports of the first ten days taken away from me. Second, I'm a perfectionist and I understand Spanish pretty well, so it was difficult for me to accept that I was not going to understand everything my host family said to me (and definitely not everything they said to each other). Third, well...sometimes I have trouble adjusting to new things. As my mom told me over the phone that week (and I think she's right on this one), I've always been the type of person who likes to observe first, be cautious, feel things out, and then join in. That's just how I operate, so the first few days were difficult because I was taking in all this new information and trying to piece it together, trying to figure things out. For example, during the first days I was trying to figure out how I was going to occupy myself during the afternoons. In the morning us gringos went to class at the local elementary school, but we had every afternoon (and most evenings) free to "spend time with our families." My host mom and dad were farmers, and I learned quickly that, as it's harvest time in Chile right now, both of them spent most of the day out harvesting the various fruits and vegetables they grow. So, in an attempt to both be like a "normal" member of the family and be generally helpful, I suggested to my host mom that I could help her harvest raspberries in the afternoon. She laughed and said no, I should be going out, having fun and getting to know other young people. And I know she thought it was particularly comic, because I heard this story repeated several times to neighbors and relatives. At first, I felt discouraged. I wanted to be treated like a normal daughter of the household, not a special guest. But I couldn't change their expectations. And what is there to negotiate, really, when your relationship is only going to last ten days? Using the fake-it-'til-you-make-it strategy, I told myself that their attitude was actually generous. Soon enough, I saw that my attempt at positivity was, in fact, the truth. Not only was my family putting up with me, feeding me, housing me -  they were giving me the freedom to be a young person. They were giving me a life free of responsibilities. So I let them treat me like a guest. I didn't wash dishes or do laundry. I tried to please my mom - I took a snack to school every day, and tried to eat everything she put in front of me (although I still got comments about "how little I ate"). I went out at night to spend time with gringos and chilenos and didn't return 'til the wee hours of the morning (another cultural note: Chileans party late). And you know what? As I accepted things, as I got comfortable and let go a little bit, I started having a lot more fun.

 Other (less introspective) aspects of my country life in Chile:
- Lots of chickens. Everywhere.
- Walking to school - and everywhere else - via roads of dirt, dust, and stones.
- Walking underneath the power lines, which made noise and generally made us gringos nervous. Several chilenos said that if you walk underneath the power lines in winter, their energy creates a zone of warmth.
- Biking to school in a giant posse of gringos.
- Incredibly tasty and fresh food. In the mornings, my host mom could step outside the house for five minutes and collect enough raspberries to fill my entire water bottle (which is over 20 oz.) with fresh raspberry juice. And at least one of those aforementioned chickens went into making some delicious cazuela (stew).
-There's no light pollution out in the campo. Which means that I could see a plethora of stars and the Milky Way every night, with amazing clarity. On the other hand: no street lights. So I did a lot of walking home late with a few friends and a flashlight, trying not to walk past my house on accident.
- Being able to openly discuss drinking, partying, offensive Chilean words, and everything else with Juan Pablo and Ricardo (two of my pre-program professors). I'm going to miss them, and I'm going to miss being able to have that kind of relationship with my teachers.
- People in the country are closely connected to one another. Although my family was relatively small, it was common for relatives, friends, and neighbors to stop by for a meal or just to pass the time. Also, having such extended adopted "families" and such a small community meant that often times, if we were walking somewhere, passing pickup trucks would pull over to offer us rides. The driver would turn out to be somebody's uncle's cousin, and we could all pile into the back.
- Cultural exchange with Chileans. One of our gringo-chileno parties involved the mutual teaching of drinking games (although I didn't participate), and I had a great moment one night where, in response to a chileno's question, I explained that "puchyourhandzup" meant "put your hands up" which meant "manos arriba." Or the time that my host dad asked me if we had honey in the United States. It just reminds you that there's so much out there to learn about the way other people live!

And that, my friends, is a brief look at my time in the campo. It wasn't perfect (nothing is!), but it was an interesting, different and ultimately very rewarding adventure. I am deeply, deeply grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in the pre-program, and I am sure that, without it, my experience here in Chile would have meant much less. And I haven't made any promises (to anyone, including myself), but if I have the opportunity to do so I'd really like to visit San Dionisio again before I leave.

Oh, and did I mention that I also met a very nice Chilean boy in San Dionisio? That's my private life - so I'm not going to cover it in future posts - but it makes me happy to think about it, and I believe that happiness is meant to be shared ;).