El Aniversario de Colegio Coya

In the United States we have homecoming, but in Chile the closest thing we have to homecoming is the schools anniversary. To celebrate, the school is divided into two different teams that compete in many different competitions for three school days and in the end the team with the most points wins. This year, my school had the Red Alliance and the White Alliance and my classroom was part of the Red Alliance. Similar to homecoming, both teams spend many long nights preparing for all the competitions and practicing the dances. Many people asked me to participate in the dances but I was very confused about what was going on and instead agreed to take part in the sport competitions. I planned on playing soccer, running, and playing volleyball. Little did I know, volleyball was full, there weren't enough girls for girls soccer, and the schools track is being redone at the moment so the track competition had been removed. At first I was a tad disappointed, but I knew I would have a good time watching and cheering on my friends. I was soooo right! The talents of my schoolmates are apparently never ending. I got to spend three school days being entertained by all sorts of happy dancing, singing, and music-playing Chilean kids and it was awesome. Friday night, everyone returned to the school to find out who won. My team got in a circle and we all huddled up and waited anxiously to hear the final outcome. The other team ended up winning and a lot of people in the Red Alliance were very sad and some of the girls even started crying. I hugged them and tried to cheer them up but they had worked so hard for this competition and felt as if it had all been for nothing. One thing I strongly dislike about speaking in my second language is that I cannot express myself in the ways I would like to. For me, it's easy to help out and say the right thing and cheer people up in English, but in Spanish I am lucky to say "I hope you feel better" correctly. Nevertheless, I wasn't upset that we lost. I had a good time cheering on my friends and even though we lost I think they were amazing. I was also happy for my other friends in the White Alliance who had won. They were so cheerful and smiley! Afterwards each alliance had their own party but my parents wanted me to come home so I did. I was exhausted from screaming for my alliance. Hahahah, that's the other thing! For the anniversary of the school, there are a series of different chants that everyone (except me) knows and hollers out on an hourly basis during the celebrations. The problem is, they are too fast for me so I just sort of make noises that are similar to the words and clap my hands and everyone laughs at me. Some of them are really weird and make no sense but they are super fun anyways. :)

This morning, I woke up and felt very refreshed to have a nice sleep after all the crazy activities. I went for a run and then returned to the house and ate a late breakfast. Around lunchtime, my parents drove me to Colegio Coya because the school was having a celebration of the 18th all day long. I hung out with Dani for the majority of the day and we just talked and walked around. It wasn't a very eventful day but it was a nice one! I like how the fact that my Spanish is improving is making my friendships stronger. While having a bunch of really nice people around me is fantastic, sometimes it's hard to be surrounded by people who want to know about who you are when you don't have all the words to tell them. This is hard but I think it's also good in many ways. One of which is that it gives me the opportunity to show people who I am instead of tell them, and I think that is a lot more real anyways. 

Okay that is all for now. Chile is amazing and the world is amazing and you are all super duper amazing as well. Goodnight!

I Have a Cold

At the moment, I am fighting off a somewhat terrible cold over here in South America. I thought that being sick in my host country would be very hard, but it turns out that like everything else here, it's just different. I have been staying in bed a lot because its the only place I can stay warm and my host mom has been taking such great care if me. She tells me that since I am her daughter, she worries about me and just wants me to feel better soon because she loves me. Every few hours, she brings tea up to my room and asks me of I need anything else! She takes such great care if me and if she is ever sick I will do the exact same for her, because she is my mom and I love her like one. It's so weird for me to be treated like this while I am sick. In the US, I often try to hide my sickness because having parents that work in the medical field makes me feel like I have nothing to complain about. However here in Chile, I have to use all my energy to convince my host parents that I am not dying and that I will be okay soon and just let them take care of me. Even my host dad comes into my room occasionally and just sits down and talks to me so that I am not lonely! What is even weirder is how I am not sad while being sick. I am still in love with Chile and I do not wish I were anywhere else! It's very hard to speak in Spanish with a soar throat and stuffed up nose, but realizing that I, at age 16 in a foreign country, can overcome sickness while speaking my second language and still be smiling, gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes me feel strong. 

While thinking about this, I realized that there are probably a lot of other exchange students who are going through similar difficulties but don't have the same enthusiasm that I have realized I have had for the passed month. We have a Facebook page where hundreds of Rotary exchange students an share their experiences with each other, and a lot of them have been posting things about how homesick they are. I decided that since I was sick and had a lot of time to do nothing, I might as well help them out by cheering them in a little, so I wrote this for them: 

It felt nice to help out my fellow intercambistas and many if them messaged me telling me that my words had helped them a lot. 

This morning another super cool thing happened to me, and since I don't feel like rewriting the whole story, I took a screenshot of it for you:

This was an almost magical experience for me and made me feel very happy. I'm going to try and get some rest now. Wish me luck with fighting off this cold! Have a great rainy Saturday. :)

Seat Belts and Miles

The reason that Rotary has an exchange program is because Rotarians worldwide agree that it will make the world a better place. Rotary clubs send us thousands of miles away with the goal of "spreading world peace and understanding" to the countries we travel to. Maybe I am a little too optimistic, but I love this job and I love smiling at people and representing my country. As a 16 year old in a foreign place, I never imagined I could impact people's lives very much, but after living here for only a little over a month, I have realized that I actually am changing the people around me. I only have two examples for you, and they aren't even huge things, but to know that they are positive differences that I have made makes me happy enough to want to blog about them. 

The first one involves seat belts. In Chile, all cars have seat belts but barely anyone wears them. I noticed this very early in my exchange, and while I always wear my seat belt, I didn't want to embarrass my family by pointing out that they don't wear theirs. I didn't know what to do because while my host parents are great drivers, I was always so worried that an accident would happen (as my dad always says "nobody plans on getting hurt"). I confided this worry in a Chilean friend of mine, and in response, instead of getting mad or offended, he promised me that he would always wear his seat belt and told me to be gently honest with my host parents. The next time we were in the car, I said quietly to my host mom in broken Spanish, "mamá, why don't you wear your seat belt? I get really worried when you don't wear it because car accidents are very common, and if anything ever happened to you I would be very sad." My host mom looked back at me smiling and told me that because I said that she will wear her seat belt for the rest of her life. I was so happy! Now whenever we get in the car I don't have to remind them, and sometimes they even have their seat belts on before I do!

The second change involves running. As you all know, I run almost every day in Chile. I thought this was only benefiting me, but I recently realized it has also been helping my host dad. Since I can't go to the track alone, my host dad comes with me everyday and does his own work out while I run.  The first week he only stretched, and the second week he began to jog a little. But he has been improving everyday and today while I was running he called over to me with a HUGE smile in his face "Saalllyyyy! Una milla!" Today my host dad ran his first complete mile in many many years! I was so happy for him! When I finished my run, he told me that he was glad he had me to be his personal trainer and that he thinks he will get healthier while I am in Chile.

So these things aren't huge, and a lot of people would probably overlook them, but it feels really good to know that I am making a difference in this country. Even if that difference only affects a couple people in very minor ways, I'm helping. I don't want to try to make Chile more like the US, I just think that these little things are good things, and I happy that I can do little things to make other people's lives just the slightest bit happier. :)

Traditions

In the US we have the Fourth of July, but in Chile, September 18th is celebrated as the birthday of Chile. While in the US the Fourth of July is a somewhat simple thing (you might go to a parade or have a family BBQ), in Chile they take this sort of holiday to a whole other level! We get an entire week off of school to celebrate! Everyone dresses in traditional Chilean clothing and listens to traditional Chilean music and eats traditional Chilean food and dances Cueca, the traditional Chilean dance. I don't know if you caught on to this, but the entire week of the 18th is a very TRADITIONAL Chilean week. To me this is very interesting because in the US we don't have very strong traditions. All week, people go to Fondas which are Chilean parties where people eat empanadas and dance Cueca and just sort of be really Chilean, hahahah. On Friday, we spent the entire day at school celebrating and had a huge assembly where a bunch of classes danced Chilean dances and everyone was happy and it was super fun! This is only my first day off of school for vacation, so I don't have much to tell you about yet, but I promise to update you on all the exciting new experiences I am pretty much guaranteed to experience over the next week. :)

Oh, another Chilean tradition is to basically plaster all of Chile with as many Chilean flags as possible. One of the most common things you will see are cars with two Chilean flags stuck on the front. However, my Chilean parents decided to break this tradition a little bit to make their North American daughter feel a little more at home! I swear they are the most thoughtful people ever. 

Goodbye Stephy!

Today everyone in tercero medio (junior year) and cuarto medio (senior year) had a gigantic math test all day long. Suuuuper fun, right? Well, because of this test I got to sleep in and didn't have to go to school! I sound enthusiastic about this, but in reality I was a little sad because I love going to school and talking to people and making memories. Nevertheless, it was nice to sleep in and later bond with my dad a little. 

After breakfast, my father took me with him to fix one of the headlights on my moms car. When that was done, we went to the bank and he taught me how to use the ATM in Spanish. After that, we went and had coffee at a little coffee shop. I love the restaurants in Chile because the employees don't try to rush you out of the restaurant the second you finish eating. My father and I drank our coffees and then sat there talking for about an hour and a half. If you are around my age and reading this, you may think this sounds boring. But I truly believe that when I grow up and look back on my exchange, one of the things I will appreciate the most are the long conversations I have had with my host parents, so i try to have a lot of them. They are always so happy to listen to my stories of the United States and have learned to look beyond my broken Spanish. After that we went grocery shopping at a supermarket and drove to another market to get seafood. My host dad absolutely loves fishing, and buying fish, and eating fish, and pretty much anything that has to do with fish, so when he says a sentence and I hear the word "fish" in it, I just act as enthusiastic as I possibly can. But when we went to this fish market, being enthusiastic was a little difficult because it sort of smelled like dissected cow eyeballs and death. Either way, if my host parents love something, I will do my best to get accustomed to it quickly so I can enjoy it with them. They deserve that, at least! 

Later in the day, my mom and I got into Stephy's parents car and accompanied them to the airport to say goodbye to Stephy before her year in Maine. At the airport, all of Stephy's friends showed up to support her and say goodbye. It was a little more rushed than Fran's goodbye, so there weren't as many tears, but it was still super heartwarming and devastating at the same time. Stephy has too little brothers, and one of them (the younger one) cried a lot while hugging Stephy goodbye. For me, it was easy to hug Stephy goodbye, because as an exchange student I know what her life will be like in a couple weeks, and I think the happiness in that surpasses the sorrows of farewell. 

On the way home from the airport, I talked to Stephy's brothers a lot and we pretty much laughed the entire way home. We gave each other words to say in Spanish and English and laughed at each others accents. I had a really nice time with these boys, hahaha. On the way home, their mom asked me if I would be interested in helping out by tutoring English, and like any decent exchange student, I said "YES" and so now I guess I'm an English tutor! 

I'm going to sleep now, but before I do, I wanted to tell you guys about a new thing I started doing today. If you know me well, you know that I am a little bit of a writer. I'm not very good at writing, but I'm a little bit obsessed with English and I love to play with words. Because of this, I have begun keeping an exchange poem journal for all the poems I write while in Chile. I record the dates they are written as well, and I think it will be interesting to look back on at the end of my year. Hopefully, by the end of my exchange, I will even be able to write some in Spanish! Okay. I'm going to sleep now. Goodnight! :)

Cow Eyeballs

Today was a pretty awesome day at school. My first class was P.E. where we are learning to dance the Cueca, which is like the super traditional Chilean dance. During this dance, the girl leads and the guy is supposed to kind of chase after her and try to flirt with her. When I watch people dance Cueca I think it's beautiful but I also can't not laugh because its so ridiculously flirty. Hahahahah and when I try to dance? Oh my goodness. Everyone laughs when I try to dance. I don't know what it is, but I am so terrible at it that I mess other people up while they are dancing because they accidentally look at me and start laughing too. It's not something I should brag about, but because of this I have a lot of fun in P.E. my classmates and I  it ironic that when I arrived at the school we began dancing for P.E. instead of playing sports when playing sports is  like the only thing I'm good at! 

 Later, during physics, I got so bored that I wrote a poem for my blog and I have decided to share it with you. So, here it is:

I'm kinda bored in physics class

And since I suck at art

I've decided to write for you

(Trust me, it's from the heart) 

I had pasta for lunch today

It tasted pretty awesome

I ate out in the grass with friends

Where springs begun to blossom 

It's 2:12 in the afternoon

Schools out at half past five

In the mornings school starts up at 8:00

Don't know how how I'm alive

In Chile life moves in slo-mo

Each minutes like a few

But I've been told to enjoy each one

So that's just what I'll do

That's all I'm gonna write for now

It's time for me to go

Distract my friends from their school work

Goodbye now. Cheerio!

And here is a picture of me in physics class with my friend Francesca:

After lunch I did what I would consider one of the most disgustingly interesting things I have ever done in my life! I got to dissect the eyeball of a cow! It was soooooo cool. The eye was so huge and slimy and I felt like it was just staring at me as I cut it open. I realize that sounds gross. Sorry. I mean, it was gross but I was so fascinated that it wasn't gross for me. I want to explain what happened in full detail but for the sake of some of your stomachs I will refrain from doing so. All you need to know is that I had a lot of fun and wore gloves and a cool surgeon jacket and did I mention I had fun? I had fun today. 

Here is a picture of the eyeball: 

(It doesn't look that big but it is bigger than the palm of my hand!)

Little Things

The biggest thing that has changed about my life in Chile is that it is actually starting to feel like a real life. I'm getting accustomed to the ways things work. This is amazing in so many ways! The only downside is that I don't get home everyday aching to blog and tell the world about my day. What once felt like a vacation is now beginning to feel more permanent, and that makes me happy. 

Since today was a pretty normal day at school, I want to take some time to talk about something I noticed on the way to school. In the United States, we pretty much have a lot of everything. Meals are rather large and our houses are always working harder than we are to keep us comfortable. This morning I realized how having less of these things has affected me. Heat is the same in both countries, but I enjoy it differently in Chile. Here, I have noticed that just standing next to a heater, or climbing into a heated bed, or just stepping into the shower makes me so happy. It's not like I'm cold when I'm not near a stove, but it's interesting to feel like I am being greeted with a hug by a temperature every time I stand next to one. I think this sensation is magnified for me because I am an exchange student and therefore feel every emotion I am forced to feel 4 times as much as I would feel it in my home country. In Chile, I don't need much of anything to make me happy. Just a little semi-successful conversation in Spanish or a little Chilean bread leaves me feeling very fulfilled. Maybe these are silly things to say, but they feel true enough. 

I said I wasn't going to talk about my day but while writing this I remembered two things. 1)fell down the stairs at my friends house today and it was incredibly embarrassing and actually quite hilarious. 2) today at my friends house I met the little sister of my friend Javi (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JAVI BY THE WAY) and she absolutely made my day. I don't know what I liked about her so much, but she was so personable and sweet and fascinated about talking to me. She kept trying to make me comfortable in her home and offering me things and being a complete angel! I just wanted you guys to know about her. Her name is Fran (isn't that ironic?) and I actually have no idea what grade she is in or how old she is, but she's so awesome. That's all for now! Night!