A couple weeks before I left for Chile I went out to brunch with a friend from high school that was studying abroad in Prague for the semester. Her semester started much earlier than mine, so she was Europe-bound in a few days and I was going to be left to wait around a month before I was able to fly out. Almost immediately she was posting piles and piles of photos of the food in Prague, her trips to Paris and London and Poland and I was gripped with excited for similar life-changing events.
But, I am going to be honest, Chile just isn't like that. I think I've struggled initially as a study abroad student because I had this perception that everything was going to be amazing all the time and I'd be traveling every weekend and this experience would mark my entire time at University. Don't get me wrong, I definitely think it will, just not for the reasons I had initially thought. I think the entire study abroad experience is fairly representative of our desire for appearances in the United States. We're the country that founded Instagram, Snapchat Facebook and the word 'FOMO', because there's an obsession to not only be in the moment but also to catalouge it and share it. So obsessed with the idea of what we're doing that really we just living in the space in between reality and the internet.
Chile takes that away from you, and at first it kinda hurts. Being ripped away from your wifi always sounded like a dream to me, but when it actually happened I really became aware how my phone had morphed into my hand. How frustrating it was that I couldn't access the internet anywhere, and how was I supposed to do anything if I couldn't get online? What about classes? What about emailing my parents? What was I gonna look at when I was on the bus or the metro? It's not that useful to carry your phone around with you in Chile because chances are you aren't going to have data, wifi or bars to do anything and I think this is one of the real beauties and appeals of Chile opposed to other study abroad experiences.
Living here these past 6 weeks has completely flipped my world upside down. Everything I thought was efficient and integral in the United States, just isn't here. Even down to the small day-to-day things, like using the bathroom. In the States I never thought that you wouldn't keep toilet paper in a bathroom stale, but in Chile it's hanging up on the wall outside of your stale. At first, this was the most frustrating thing in the world. Why would you do that? How is this efficient in any way? This all makes absolutely no sense to me. But after being here I've stopped asking questions like those and comparing the United States to Chile because there's no point.
Rather than struggle with the idea of efficiency (which I've come to understand is an idea more deeply ingrained the American mente than previously imagined), just accept it. The real beauty of Chile and the study abroad experience in Chile is that you really are confronted with almost extreme cultural differences that just aren't to the same level by studying abroad in Europe or an English-speaking country. The value here is that at first there's a certain amount of uncomfortableness because you have to change so much of yourself to fit into the rhythm of life in Santiago.
No, I may not be snapchatting the parties or instagramming my horsebackriding trip, but that doesn't actually matter. The most beneficial experience you can ask for in study abroad is to confront your own culture and perceptions of your life and study with great profundity your understanding of other parts of the world and how you want to integrate them into your future. I don't think I need to share every moment I am here in Chile, because a lot of the moments I've valued the most were the small things, like dinner with my host family when they talked about the dictatorship. No this isn't the cliche study abroad experience. This is something I can be really proud of when I leave.