Hola!
After abandoning my
blogging duties for the past month, I just now realized I never took a minute
to write about the Chilean Dia de Independencia! I guess I’ve been slightly
preoccupied applying to colleges and all…
Independence day was
not what I expected it to be in the slightest. First off, independence “day”
should actually be called independence week. The eating of the sopapillas,
asado, and empanadas actually began two days before the 18th of
September during a school celebration. Similar to the anniversary week, I went
to school to participate in activities pertaining to independence day (so
basically eating, egg toss, bean bag jump, etc.) for Monday and Tuesday, then
for Wednesday-Friday, school was closed.
To be completely
honest, I forget what happened on Monday. But on Tuesday, parents of one of my
compañeras roasted all sorts of meats for my course. It was kind of like a
barbeque: we listened to music, talked, and ate for the entire day. This was
almost like a practice, or a stomach-expansion preparation for what was to
come.
On Tuesday night, I
went to a surprise birthday party for one of my compañeras. Although it started
and ended earlier than the other parties, there was still a ton of dancing. At
12:00 am, or the start of the 18th of September, all of my
compañeros started singing the Chilean national anthem and dancing the Cueca.
After like 10 minutes of this, somebody screamed something I didn’t understand
and everyone went running towards school (so confused like usual, I followed
and started to scream like the rest of my friends). We kind of just ran around
outside of colegio for like 20 minutes until we all decided it was cold and
time to return to the house. This was probably my only form of exercise for the
entire week.
The next morning, or I
guess about four hours after the party ended, I “woke up” and was rushed out of
the house to the plaza. In the plaza, I met up with my cueca group, Passion
Cuecera, and got dressed to “desfilar”, or basically march around the plaza to
represent the club. We all had matching hair, dresses, and makeup. I felt kind
of guilty being part of the group representing the Cueca club because I had
only gone to one rehearsal (my mamá and I kind of forgot they were every Saturday
morning…oops). But regardless, it was a positive first experience desfilando.
Later that day after
dancing some Cueca in the streets, my sister, mamá, and I left the plaza and went to the family’s
campo to eat. I ate a mixture of empanadas and Arab food, as my papá and his side of the family
are of Arab origin. Later that night, my older cousin (who is 19 and I get
along really well with) and I hung out and sang with the adults in the party/cookout
room. The Campo has a really nice karyoke system and disco vibe, so we felt
like real singers.
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| Walking around the Campo |
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| My mama and I |
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| More meattt |
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| My sister, cousin, and I in the campo |
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| The view of my family's campo |
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| My cousin and I |
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| More campo viewsss |
The next day, just my
family went to a friends Campo. Unfortunately, there was nobody else relatively
close to me in age, so I spent pretty much the entire day chasing little kids and
awkwardly hiding in the bathroom for extended periods of times. Every time a
new batch of empanadas arrived, I would have to play ninja and carefully sneak
out of the house to snatch like ten then quickly run back to my hiding place to
avoid being forced to push the little kids around for more hours. Jordan, if
you’re reading this, I think I should be awarded Master Ninja (I’m reclaiming the
throne).
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| Friend's Campo |
The next day, we hung
out around the family Campo. My cousin’s pololo (well, now ex pololo) came to
visit her from Concepcion. Although at times, I was “tocando el violin”
(third-wheeling), I had a lot of fun hanging out with them. He speaks fluent English,
so I had one of my first English conversations in Chile. In the nighttime, all
three of us went to las remadas, which is basically a fair during independence
week in Yungay. Kids go to las remadas during the day to play games and adults
go in the night to dance and drink. I ran into some of my classmates, so I let
Amanda and her boyfriend do their own thing while I hung out with my friends.
The next day, I had an
official Cueca performance with Passion Cuecera at a Gala in the plaza. I forgot
I had this dance, because again, I kind of failed to show up to many of the rehearsals.
I wasn’t exactly nervous to stand on stage in front of all of Yungay because I’ve
learned through many unexpected experiences to just go with the flow, try my
best, and smile. A lot of the times, there is absolutely nothing I can do to
hide or avoid discomfort, so I just have to face it and enjoy a unique new
experience without dwelling on my mistakes.
On a completely
different topic, I have to say, I continue to impress myself with how much I am
capable of eating here in Chile. It got to the point where I lost track how
many sopapillas and empanadas I ate at any given period of time. I experienced
some of the worst stomach pain I’ve ever felt going to bed every night, and it appeared
as though I was at least eight months pregnant every second of the week. But I have
to say, it was all worth it because I ate RICOOO.
After the independence
day, my sister and I weighed ourselves and realized we had both gained a ton of
weight since my arrival (for me, 8 kilograms to be exact). I think this might
be my fault because I would buy us sweets from the bakery every opportunity I got.
Before I could hold a conversation in Spanish, buying Martina sweets was the
only way I felt I could say hey I guess I’m your new sister now and I enjoy
spending time with you. So long story short, we were put on a diet. However, if
you know me at all, you know that I don’t do well with diets. I have enough self-control
to fast for maybe two days max (maybe three if I feel that bad about myself),
but after that, I get anxious and binge eat everything in the food cabinet. So now
I’m just trying to eat more reasonably and not worry about a little weight gain.
Eating has been helping me deal with the stress of being an exchange student,
so I’m not about to take that away from myself haha.
I guess the last thing
that I’ve been up to since independence day is APPLYING TO COLLEGES. I
experienced my first wave of anxiety upon the realization that I need to write
about eight different essays over the span of 1 ½ months (and this does not
include any of the short answer questions). These essays are mainly for scholarships
or honors colleges, so they have to be good. Getting all of this done by the
due date really scared me because most days, I don’t even have time to run for
an hour. If I did find time to sit alone in a quiet room, I found it extremely
hard to start thinking deeply and reflecting on my life and my experiences. So,
to give myself motivation to get these done, I award myself two king sized Super
8s upon finishing an essay and one king size upon finishing the edits. Super 8
me salva la vidaaaa (I’m not kidding…I’d argue the creator of Super 8 is more intelligent
than Joseph Liu, the calc GOD, himself). And now, on top of eating Super 8s for
writing purposes, I’ve begun eating them whenever I hang out with the German
exchange student (oh yeah, I finally decided to check my insta DMs, and I
realized somebody sent me a text two months earlier telling me they were also
an exchange student in Yungay…so we met up, talked in ENGLISH (finally), and
have been hanging out a lot ever since). The last time we hung out, I think we
each ate literally 5 king sized super 8s. So much for my “diet” I suppose…
I am really starting
to vibe more and more with my family; my host sister now says “te quiero Allie”,
which means I love you, my host brother feels comfortable enough to launch viscous
and violent attacks on me both in and out of school, and I have been able to
talk to my host mom about literally anything, even if it’s super personal. They
all do such an amazing job making me feel like part of the family, and I really
couldn’t have been luckier😊
I am still not fluent
in Spanish, but I definitely feel I can understand and communicate mostly
everything now. The process of learning Spanish, although difficult, has been
extremely interesting psychologically. It kind of reminds me of the first time
I learned how to program in Java: I have begun to think in a different, more creative
way. In coding, I’m usually given some word problem to solve. I then have to
think about the functions in Java I can use to create a solution that would
satisfy any combination of inputs. It’s interesting because many of these word problems
seem simple, but in reality, their solutions are backed up by hundreds of lines
of code. It’s fascinating for me to look at simple-seeming things, like a
calculator, or even a social media site, and think about the simple seeming
function we take for granted is backed up by lines and lines of code (and
honestly just how writing commands in this format (or language, I suppose) can
create all of these functions.
Wow, totally got off
track here but I guess what I’m trying to say is that every time I have an idea
in my head that I can’t directly translate to Spanish, I have to quickly think
of a different way to say it using words I do know, and this process reminds me
of coding. Like coding, its extremely rewarding when I do discover a
combination of words to express my ideas jeje.
Also really quickly: about three weeks ago, people frustrated with the many social problems in Chile started to revolt and destroy the metros in Santiago. These attacks were violent, so the President called a state of emergency...now ALL the cities in Chile are demanding change. My town is super tiny and tranquil, but even we had marches every day of last week. Of course the day I was sick at home throwing up was the day my classmates decided to create a wall of chairs blocking the teachers from entering our sala. They didn't even get in trouble apparently (I was SOOO mad I missed it). Rotary unfortunately told me I couldn't participate in the marches, so to still feel apart of the events and support the demand for change, I got to dance in the plaza in protest with both my Cueca group and my Zumba group. It was soooo much fun!!
Although I don't support the violence and destruction, I definitely understand the need for change in Chile. I didn't know this before, but after doing some research on why people were so upset, I found out Chile is number 11 on the list of countries with the greatest wealth gap (worse than the United States even). Along with that, the government gives very little money to programs like education and health care. I kind of had a feeling the government doesn't give much money to schools because there is NEVER toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms (or at least I haven't seen any in the past three months). As students, we also have to bring ALL the materials we need for school, including lab coats for labs and art materials (paper, paint, etc.) for art class. I asked some of my companeros about this and the bathroom situation, and they said the school doesn't get a lot of outside funding:( But at least the education and teachers are good (at least I think; still can't understand everything...). It's an interesting experience for sure.
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| Zumba in the night |
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| "Protesting" |
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| We made cookies because I couldn't march |
Some other stuff I’ve
been up to: I went to Talca with my sister on a bus for her Taekwondo
competition, I went to Santiago to visit family (my friend from the exchange lives there and he showed me around a bit), I visited University of Concepcion with my school, I am currently on vacation in Pucon (a tourist town in the south with lots of mountains and volcano villarica), and I have been
taking out money from my debit card everyday to pay for a school trip to Bariloche,
Argentina with my grade this December (I’m also going on the Rotary trip to
Torres del Paine, or Patagonia; this trip will finish four days before Bariloche.
I have lotsssss to look forward to jeje).
Chao!
Allie
