By vgosalvez11
This last week was defined mostly by the exciting new experience of moving in with my host family on Tuesday. I was eager to get settled and to meet my family, but nervous about the prospect of leaving the security of our orientation hotel where all the members of my program were staying together. In reality most of these feelings were outweighed by my burning desire to unpack my suitcase and get myself organized.
Of course my host family is absolutely lovely. I am living with older retired couple, native Santiaguinos who have been living here their whole lives. They have an adult son with two small children of his own (18 months and 4 years old) who come over to play often. This has been a lovely set up for me as I am able to enjoy some peace and quiet as well as many years of knowledge from my host parents. But I also get to play pretend and chase the babies around the yard. As you can see, they love to take selfies . . .
Fun Fact: In Chile, the sound a dog makes is not "Bark" or "Woof Woof", but "WOW WOW". I would know, as I spent 45 minutes the other day pretending to be a puppy with the kids.My homestay experience is going to be like a crash course in being Chilean. I am hopeful that being part of a family's home life is going to be the best way to both improve my Chilean Spanish and start to feel at home in this country.
A significant point of anxiety for me was the location of my new home. Santiago is a very large city, especially when compared to our little District of Columbia. Through orientation we got to try attempt to accustom ourselves to the TransSantiago system of metros and micros (buses). Most commutes in Santiago take upwards of 45 minutes to 1.5 hours and our classes going to be spread across multiple campuses.
This meant that moving into my host home was the equivalent of having my directionally-challenged self pushed out of the safety of the nest and hoping I could fly (or at least find my way home). It was somewhat nerve-wracking at first, but I think I am getting there with my navigation skills, and have not yet found myself epically lost. (Thanks in grand part to an app that allows you to download a full map of Santiago, which can be used without WIFI).
Seeing the transportation system in Chile and the length of time that people take to commute everyday it strikes me what a patient culture it is. Chileans pride themselves on having a "buena onda", which is sort of like having good vibes or being in a good mood. This mindset goes well beyond just a long bus ride. Long wait times or systematic inconveniences seem not to affect them. As exchange students, our group was advised to attempt to take on this attitude and go with the flow.
Our group was severely tested in this goal on our early morning trip to register our visas. Chilean bureaucracy and the lack of efficiency is practically a thing of legend here. There is even a word which illustrates the struggle of completing some bureaucratic task - "hacer un tramité". Un tramité would be something like waiting in a long line to register your car at the DMV. For us, this meant getting up at 6 in the morning to be in by 7 to register out visas. This process ended up taking about 7 hours of standing waiting in line—just to get one piece of paper signed.
As exhausting and frustrating as these tramités can be, they are also in some way enduring. The long lines and the simple tasks that can't be done over the web stem from a cultural importance placed on doing business "en persona", or face to face. Coming from a culture where everything is done as quickly and impersonally as possible, the emphasis on human interaction is rather refreshing. Okay yeah, standing in for 7 hours is never going to be fun, but it is good to know that this comes from such a nice cultural norm.
In order to reward ourselves for surviving our first "tramité", several of the girls from the program and I decided to take a day trip to the beach on Saturday. We took an hour bus ride out to Algarrobo and then walked through the town to Playa El Canelo. It was very cool to see more of a small pueblo (town) now that we have been in Santiago for a while. Personally, I was overly excited about my first swim in the Pacific Ocean (although I think the water was even colder than in Massachusetts, if possible). The beach was also next a little outlook point where we were able to climb up and get some pretty amazing views of the ocean and the town. I told myself it was a hike so that I can psych myself up for some of the actual hiking I plan to do soon.
However, the best part of the day wasn't the beautiful views, or the nice beach, or working on our tans (spoiler alert: we all got burnt to a crisp). The most amazing part was the atmosphere of the beach. We commented to each other multiple times how as full as the beach was it was so much more calm and relaxed than we had experienced at beaches in the US. Playa El Canelo simply had a "buena onda".
Maybe the moral is that, in order to have awesome beaches, you also must have ridiculously long seven hour tramités. I'm not really sure yet, but I am just going to keep working on creating my own buena onda. Next week class selection starts, so let’s see if I can keep up this good attitude!