Sunday, April 27, 2014

Rehearsals

This week I spent almost everyday after school rehearsing dances for hours and hours for the schools anniversary that starts tomorrow. My legs have been super tired and I am sore on really funny places but I have discovered that I actually really like dancing a lot! I mean I think I always have, but Chile has taught me how to dance without being so shy and I am really happy about that! 
I am participating in about a million activities (by that I mean 9 but it's usual to participate in 4 or 5 so it's still a lot) for the schools annoversary. It starts tomorrow and I am just so excited and nervous! I like the anniversary celebration because i feel like it really bonds the school in a special way. I have met so many great people this past week and they are all so awesome and smiley! :) 
This weekend we had the district conference of Rotary. I remember the district conference in the US and how tearful  and hard it was, but this one wasn't liked that. We are all going to eachothers goodbye parties and a lot of us are going to Easter Island together in a week so we are going to be fine! It was nice to see all the exchangers though! 

Before I go to sleep I also want to say that my mom told me we would be receiving a girl from Italy next year named Anna! I am so excited about this and I don't even know her yet but she is amazing and I love her and am going to try to be a Fran for her because Fran was the best sister ever. :)


Sunday, April 20, 2014

Argentina

This weekend I was supposed to go to Argentina with my new host family to celebrate Easter. Unfortunately, my papers that would have legalized my travels to Argentina did not arrive in time of me to accompany my family on their vacation. That sounds really sucky and depressing and terrible, but guess what?! I had an incredible weekend anyways! I decided to not be upset because I will eventually make it to Argentina, and I actually made some great memories while being left behind in Rancagua! :)
When my family left to go to Argentina, they dropped me off at Paula's house to help out with a completada she was hosting for the schools Anniversary. If you guys remember from many months ago, the schools anniversary is like home coming and it's super fun and I'm lucky I get to participate in another one! We held a completada at Paula's house, which is pretty much a hot dog sale except with Chilean hot dogs (bigger and better and served with avocado and tomato) to raise money for expenses of the schools aniversario. It was fun hanging out with my classmates and working and talking to everyone! After the completada, Paula and the friends and I all got cleaned up to go to our friend Pedro's birthday party. We walked together in a large group (because we are safe like that) to Pedro's house and I have to say that when I arrived I was completely blown away. His house looked like a full on disco (night club? I don't know what the US word is.. hahaha). There were lights everywhere and loud dancing music and soooo many people in his house! It was honestly one of the most fun parties I have ever been to! I danced with all my new friends and spent at least 90% of the night laughing! It felt so good to be there with them and having such a good time. Earlier this week I was having some doubts about my new school and feeling a little lonely while missing my friends from Coya, but this night really helped me with that. Going out with friends outside of school and just dancing the night away is a really good way to feel closer to people I guess! 
The next morning Paula and I slept in super late but were awoken with her big sister tapping lightly on the door and bringing us breakfast pie and tea in bed. It was such a sweet way to wake up and I felt so taken care of and happy! I spent the rest of that day making empanadas with Paula's beautiful family in their lovely little home. They made me laugh and feel very comfortable and I am just so glad I have a friend like Paula who would invite me in to meet her family!
That night Paula's family dropped me off at Katie Ward's house to spend the rest of the weekend with my hilarious Arizonian friend. We hung out with her friend Jose who is super Copland then went bed really early (at like 11 which is super early in Chile hahahah) 
In the morning we went to a rodeo with Katie's family to help sell unhealthy food to the huasos (Chilean cowboys). It was kind of boring and kind of really fun at the same time hahahha. 
(We are so CHILE)

Today we woke up to the most un-eastery Easter ever. There was no chocolate of family time or anything. I mean, everyone on our instagrams got all sorts of treats but Katie's family wasn't that into celebrating I guess. We honestly did nothing all day except for eat toast and watch old movies hahaha. It was a good day, though. I had a good time doing nothing! Katie is a fun person to do nothing with. 
Later my old host parents (Manuel and Lilian) came and picked me up from Katie's house to spend the night in my old host house. It was super weird getting home to my room and seeing all Alex's stuff all over it! I ate Once with my old family and it was a delicious as I had remembered it, and then I came upstairs to get ready for bed and realized I don't have my uniform for tomorrow! But my mom and I found a bunch of Fran's old clothing that kind of works and a mixture of that and Alex's uniform is what I will be wearing tomorrow I guess hahahah. 
Right before writing this, my mom surprised me with a little Easter treat! 
So I guess my Easter bunny found me after all! :)




Monday, April 14, 2014

A New Family and Valpairiso

So two major things happened since the last time I blogged and I am going to take a couple of minutes to tell you about them. First of all, I changed host families and I am absolutely in love with these people! Like the US and Chile, there is no way I can compare my old host family and my new host family because they are both so different and I love them both so much, but I can say that I continue to be incredibly happy here! I forgot what it feels like to be in a house that has kids living in it, and it is so different having Chilean siblings than siblings from the US. Now I can't speak for Chilean children in general, for I have not lived with any except the ones I live with now, but I can tell you that the experience I have been having for the past week has been amazing! My little sister Monse is 9 and she is seriously just a little sun that runs around the house shining all the time. When I arrived, she helped me organize my room and she is always hanging out with me and we have made so many plans together for my last three months in Chile! My host brother, Maxi, is 15 and he is seriously the perfect brother. He is so respectful and helpful and also quite intelligent and hardworking. He is pacient with me and always answers my questions with smiles and I just think he is so amazing. My host mom, Nancy, is very kind to me and is honestly the most incredible baker in the world so I can pretty much just forget about being skinny hahah. I haven't spent much time with my host dad, but what time I have spent with him I have had a good time so I am happy about that too!
 In my new house, I have a nana named Señora Adela and she is soooo great! I love her hahaha. Not only does she make my bed and wash my clothes and make me yummy food, but because she drinks chai tea with me and tells me stories and makes me feel like I have a third host mother. I am so grateful to have a family that accepted me so well into their home and makes me feel loved and cared for. :)




This weekend I went to visit Viña and Valpairiso for the first time with all the exchange students. I have been waiting  to visit those cities since I arrived in Chile and it was so perfect to see them with for the first time with my lovely exchange student family! We spent a lovely day walking along the beach in viña and up through the extravagantly graffitied walls of Valpo! I absolutely fell in love with Valpo. It would have been a perfect day of it hadn't been for the little fire we saw. Up on the hill above is, brown and black smoke began to rise above the city and ash began falling like little burnt snowflakes. We were told it happens all the time in that city and that it was probably nothing, so we continued taking oictures and having a great day. 


But as the afternoon dragged on, the flames did as well. By the time we got back to the hotel we got the report that 11 people had already died, 2,000 homes had been destroyed and that 8,000 people had been left homeless. We were all devastated to hear such news and are planning out as many ways as we can to help out by orgazing fundraisers and collecting food and clothes to send to all the people affected by this tragedy. All I really want to do is get on a bus and go help build them new houses, but the fire stopped very recently and I doubt I would be allowed to go there alone with all the chaos and Rotary rules. It really gets me down thinking about all the people over there, not even that far away from me, scared and cold and not having any idea what to do without any of their belongings. 

But the thing is, Chile is a calloused country filled with people sweet as cabritos but tough as nails. In this country, earthquake after earthquake can knock down every creation made by these people but together they always find a way back up. What is going on right now is traumatic and tragic but if there is one thing I am sure about, it's that despite the pain, the hurt, and the loss, is that these people are going to be okay and that we are all going to see it through. Chileans know how to lend a helping hand and have learned the meaning of what it means to have someone's back because literally everything that hasn't killed them has just made them stronger. 
Fuerza Chile <3














Tuesday, April 8, 2014

My Last Night - Family Changes

Sooooo I guess tonight is my last night with my first host family. It sort of felt like this day would never come because I have been waiting for it for months, but now that it has I don't really know how to feel. Living in this home I have experienced some of the best days of my life, and some of the hardest times I have ever been through. I certainly lived a life of extremes in this house, but that is what makes it hard to leave. Everything I have been through on my exchange so far has toughened me up in places I had no idea I was so weak, and opened my mind to ideas I never fathomed even existed. An exchange has a huge impact on anyone lucky enough to go on one, and which house am exchange student is sent to has, of course, a major say in what that impact will be. It's hard for me to leave this house because of all the nights I have sat crisscross on my balcony to write out all the thoughts swarming through my head in complicated Spanglish. It's hard because of all the mornings I have woken up, remembered I was in Chile, and then happily set my mood to the uplifting tone of my bedrooms bright blue wall paint. It's difficult because all the little night time tears I cried in my worst moments, I cried looking up at the little accidental flaws that I formed into shapes on my ceiling, running around the nearby plaza, or in other places still knowing for sure that I would be returning to this little house later on. 
The hardest, most impossible, most complicated things to leave behind, however, are the people who have made this house into my home. Manuel and Lilian, Mamá y Papà, two of the most forgiving, understanding, and loving people I have had the pleasure of getting to know in my lifetime. We have had our differences, to say the least, but we are a family and there is not one family that doesn't have a few problems every once in a while. Honestly, I feel like the difficulties we have faced, and the ways we have overcome them, are what prove to me the most that I am, indeed, and always will be, one of their daughters. Since I haven't yet left, I have know idea what I'm going to miss he most about this family, but I do know that they will be the little differences that you don't notice until they are missing. Without leaving, I can tell you that I will miss the way that my mom cocks her head to warm up her smile, her little foot steps coming up the stairs to say goodnight to me, and the way she does everything, even dropping the ice cubs into my tea, so fragilely as if I am something worth protecting. I will miss the way my dad dances in the car and in the stores like nobody is watching and says little frases in English to make me laugh. I have had such an exceptional time living with these people for the past 8 months, and have felt such love in the most unlikely of places. I am eternally grateful for this opportunity to study abroad, and I remember that every day, but I am even more grateful for the way these people have accepted me and turned my Chilean experience into something so vivid and lively and rich with such epic stories. I love my host parents and I love Chile and everyday I fall even more in love with the memories I made the day before. 



I have no idea what my life will be like in my new family, but I do know how I am going to arrive at their home. I am going to bring all the positive energy I can muster, and all the smiles that can't seem to stop bubbling out of my mouth whenever I exhale. I am going to leave this house with strength and do the best I can to be the greatest daughter and exchange student I can in the next one. I am not going to let the slip ups that happened with my first family discourage me, but I am going to remember them as lessons that nobody should be ashamed about having to learn, and grow through the knowledge that one only gains through experience and persistence. I only have three months left in this outstanding country, and I am going to continue to make the best our of every single second because that is really the best thing I can think of to do. 

Good night, everyone. And wish me luck! :)