Holi Uri!

For the entire first day, I thought my family’s dog was named Holi. Turns out it’s actually Uri, and holi is the “hey” way of saying hi to friends. So, HOLI AMIGOS! 

I’ve officially been in Vina del Mar, Chile, South America for one full week. In the past seven days, I’ve had my fair share of adventures, and I’ve discovered how much I’m going to love it here (and how much I already do). 

Based off what I’m experiencing now, what I’ve been told I’ll feel in the future, and what I’m hoping to feel at the end, Uri’s laying down ritual seems to be an appropriate metaphor for my time in Chile. Here’s a photo of him enjoying my bed (he’s probably in it much more often than I am these days).

Metaphorically, I’ve found the spot I eventually want to comfortably lay down in, and I’m circling around it for the very first time. Everything is foreign. All of my senses are on overdrive, trying to take in as much as possible, and my head feels like it’s full of a tangled mess of Spanish; everything is a first. 

I watched the sun set over the Pacific Ocean in Chile for the first time while roller blading with my host sister Cata and her friend Trini. There’s a lovely path near our house that follows the shore of the Mar, and we skated parallel to the sun’s last rays, listening to the waves crashing. I went out to eat with my host family for the first time at a little restaurant on the coast, and I ordered an empanada and some soup, both filled with various seafoods. Although I had no idea what I was eating, both dishes were “rico” or delicious. (below is a photo of Mariscal Caliente--the soup)

I read my first Spanish book, never mind that its intended audience was 13 years my junior. It was about a lion that was the king of a forest. Beautiful plot and great character development, as I’m sure you can imagine. I had my first Pisco, which is a strong alcoholic drink made from grapes that is extremely popular in Chile. Pisco sour tastes a bit like nail polish remover, but piscola (pisco and coca cola) isn’t too bad. On Monday, I took my first Spanish test ever. It was similar to what I was expecting and consisted of Estar vs Ser, reading comprehension, a writing section and lots and lots of verb conjugations and tenses. I also had an oral Spanish exam which was easier than the written one. One of the Spanish teachers asked me approximately 10 questions like where I’m from, what I like to do, why I choose Chile, etc. Then she asked how long I had been studying spanish. You should have seen her face. She proceeded to ask the same question, except slower, twice more, and I had to explain that yes, I could understand the question; I have never taken a Spanish class. Another evening I got lost for the first time, and my twenty-five minute walk home ended up being two hours long and involved a dead phone, three conversations with local people, a Colectivo (which is a mix between a bus and a taxi-it’s a car, but it has fairly fixed route), and about five minutes of terror. 

On Wednesday, all of the exchange students at UVM (Universidad Vina del Mar) went on a tour of Valapariso, and I got to experience the city for the first time. There is an incredible mix of old and new, of colors and darkness, of money and poverty, of clean and dirty. It is romantic. Beautiful. Shocking.

In some places, the streets are incredibly winding, bumpy, and steep, and I cannot imagine driving on them. We walked through a lot of alleys which used to be streets in the past but are far too skinny for any modern day vehicle. Our tour guide explained that Valparaiso is defined by its port history. One example of this the construction of the majority of the houses. 

As you can see in the photo above, the outside walls are covered in scrap metal. When the city was first constructed, one of the most available materials was the scrap metal in the bottom of incoming ships, used for balance and discarded when the cargo was unloaded. However, because the metal rusted quickly, the people coated their walls in protective paints leftover from various projects in the port. Thus, the tradition of color was born, and it continues to thrive today. 

Some houses look as if they’re completely unlivable, destroyed by earthquakes and neglect, but yet there are still signs of people living there, like clothing out to dry and food on the window sills. It’s completely different from anything I’ve ever seen before. Valparaiso is also coated in street art and graffiti. There are some walls painted with typical teenage markings, but the vast majority is beautiful and intricate and impressive. Here is a photo of me and my favorite mural thus far. It’s very Van Gogh like. 

I experienced my first rainy day in Chile another day, and as a result I got to try a delicious bakery good that apparently everybody eats on rainy days. Cata bought it for me at a local bakery on our walk to my orientation, and it was orange-ish, flat-ish and 100% deep fried. Its name was sopaipilla. (so-pa-pe-ya). It wasn’t sweet, and it wasn’t really salty either, but I liked it. That same night, I bought my first drink at a local bar called Cafe Journal. It was a pina colada, and although this is slightly embarrassing, I must admit I prefer the taste of virgin pina coladas (they're more like smoothies!). (Below is Hazel and I at Cafe Journal. She ordered a strawberry daiquiri.)

On Thursday we had our first volunteer orientation for something called Adapta Chile. I’ll be sure to share more information about the program and what we're doing once it actually starts. My favorite part of the orientation though was “listening” to a lecture from a Chilean man who was deaf (sordo), because it was fascinating and reminded me of a really long game of charades with a few broken Spanish words thrown in for good measure. I learned that Chilean sign language is different, even the alphabet, and I learned how to say a couple of words in Chilean sign language. For “Chile,” use your right hand and act as if you’re flicking something off the left side of your chest, starting with your thumb up and ending with your palm down. For “United States,” weave your fingers like your folding your hands in your lap, but instead of making a ball, make a little wall with your thumbs up, and then move this in a circle in front of you. Yesterday I took my first siesta (in Chile), and it was absolutely wonderful, and I climbed the local sand dunes for the first time too, equally wonderful. 

I've seen (and walked through) my first protest in Chile; it’s been going on for three days. Every time I walk to the universidad, I pass right through the middle of a crowd of protesters congregated in front of Banco Ripley. Some are asking for money with little trays fill of coins, but the majority are blowing into these noise horns which are surprisingly loud for their small size. It’s an impressive sight and an even more impressive sound. (I felt a bit awkward taking a photo of the people, so for now, this casual walking snipe will have to do)

On Saturday, my sister’s school had a “feria” or market, and the night before, she asked if I would help her cook something to sell. She wanted something American, and so began my first adventures in a Chilean kitchen, baking American desserts, but Chilean style. Here, at least in my host family’s kitchen, there’s very little food storage. Most foods are bought on a day to day basis, and the grocery stores near my house don’t have some foods like baking chocolate or brown sugar. Nevertheless, Cata and I made brownies and two types of scones. We were surprisingly successful considering we had no measuring cups or scales or any means of precision, and there was some improvisation with ingredients. 

And finally today. My host family and I drove about 40 minutes into the country to have a Chilean barbecue with some friends. (Here's a photo I took on our drive out there. Cata really likes this photo, and while giggling, she pointed out that it's perfect for South America because it has a micro in it.)

Their family friends live in an adorable house in Leguna Verde. Leguna Verde is the name of the hill their house is on, because here, rather than identifying with a neighborhood, people identify their home area by which hill its on. For lunch, we had a Chilean Barbecue, and I tried choripan for the first time; I think it’s my current favorite food here (although it’s an extremely close and hard decision). Choripan is a certain type of amazing meat in the middle of toasted Chilean bread. You may think it’s similar to a hot dog, but if you’re going to make that comparison, please keep in mind that this is 38498273498203489 times better. After eating our weight in all natural, all organic, all local foods, Cata, two sisters from Santiago and I went for a walk in the woods, looking at the shacks, the houses, the trees, the Mar. (Here is a photo of Choripan and the other delicious grilled foods and a couple of other photos I took during our walk) 

I’m currently battling my first sore throat, headache combination, but with my tea with lemon and honey, my new fuzzy slippers, a cat in my lap, a homemade blanket across my legs, a chilean cream puff like pastery in my tummy, and a toasty, fire heated room, I really can’t complain too much. And I think I’m going to win. Good thing too, for tomorrow is yet another first--my first day of school!!!