Mastering Spanish ;), Moving, Starting Work, and Future Travel Plans
Sorry for the radio silence on my end, folks! I say, as if I have a devoted fan-base eagerly checking their emails on a daily basis awaiting my next long-winded, rambling blog post about who-knows-what... But, in case I just perfectly described you... fret no longer, because you are about to get a stream of updates in this post, and a few more to come, likely today or in the next few days. It all depends on how much stamina I have for typing abut my experiences and curating my hundreds of photos into something that I think could be moderately interesting to anyone who chooses to spend a few minutes of their time with me here on the internet.
To start off, a bit of an explanation as to why both my instagram and blog have been less active than usual as of late. I've been struggling with some major wifi challenges here in Chile. Plus, you wouldn't imagine how tiring intensive daily Spanish classes from 9:30am - 4pm can be! So, when I'd get back to my dorm room/hostel in the student residence only to discover lagging wifi, I didn't quite have enough patience to wait for the Wix website to load and twiddle my thumbs as 50+ images uploaded to my page. It felt much more appealing to zone out and listen to music, crochet, watch my downloaded episodes of Jane the Virgin in Spanish, or forgo heading back to my room altogether in favor of heading out with friends I made at the language school. Unfortunately, my body has also had some ups and downs getting accustomed to the climate here in Santiago, so from dealing with sunburns to nagging coughs, colds, and nosebleeds due to the dry air (still ongoing sadly), I had didn't seem to have quite enough energy stores left to devote to blogging.
But, that has changed now! Which, brings me to my updates.
Completed Spanish Classes
I suppose the header gives it away, but I am officially done with my 3-week "super-intensive" Spanish course. If anyone is interested in doing a Spanish immersion course in South America, I highly recommend Tandem Santiago! I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. The people were all lovely and they put on weekly activities and outings that really helped expand my learning and ability to explore the city. But, that is for another post. Stay tuned!
I started the course having done only about 3-months of daily Duolingo. That is to say, I knew basically nothing upon my arrival. But, over the course of my time, I learned how to conjugate all verbs in the present. I learned all of the Spanish past tenses and future tenses. I learned about direct and indirect pronouns, prepositions, and a ton of vocabulary. Plus I gained more confidence in reading (aloud too), writing, and speaking in Spanish.
Concluding these classes was actually quite challenging. In an ideal world, I'd have 2 months outside of my Watson year (but still have funding) to be here to keep taking classes all the way through the advanced level to really build my abilities. I came to really enjoy the routine and structure that went along with going to my daily morning and afternoon courses and seeing the progress that I was making. But, I didn't have to look that hard to also see my shortcomings. There still so much that I struggle with in Spanish. I mean, I learned the language in a structured way for a total of 13 days in reality. (We had Monday and Tuesday off my second week because of bank holidays). So I can simultaneously recognize how much I have been able to do in that time but it is also still really hard to know exactly what I want to communicate (often in both English and French) and not be able to. I fumble around trying to find a word or way to rephrase the sentence to get the idea across and even when I think I speak clearly I still get confused looks back. But, on a brighter note, I can understand A LOT of Spanish that is spoken to me. That is helpful at least. It makes it a bit more challenging when I cannot demonstrate that I understand through responding appropriately, but alas... Luckily, people are patient!
Related to my note about French above, I mentioned in my last post wanting to "turn off the French part of my brain", so that I can learn Spanish a bit easier and not slip not French when trying to speak it. Well, I'm happy to report that by some means I have been able to do that! But, it is not quite the relief that I thought it would be. After spending well over a decade learning French, after immersing myself in trying to learn Spanish for a bit over 3 weeks, I have found it hard to remember things in French now. Words and phrases that I absolutely know and a month ago could have rattled off without much or any thought or hesitation now take a lot of concentration for me to remember. I'm sure it is because the two languages are so similar and because I am surrounded by Spanish 24/7 and trying my hardest to learn the language as much and as quickly as I can. And, I'm guessing that within a handful of minutes to hours of being out of this environment and into a French-speaking one, it will all come back no problem. It is, a bit, disconcerting, though, to say the least!
Moving a Few Blocks Away
The completion of my Spanish classes also brought about the end of my stint staying at associated student residence. I wasn't necessarily sad to go, although the place had become familiar and nice. But, finding a new place to live for the remainder of my time in Chile proved to be more challenging (and expensive) that what I initially anticipated. I think I messaged over 30 hosts on AirBnB in the area (I wanted to stay nearby since I know the neighborhood is safe and it is close to the school so I could still participate in after class activities) to see if their place was available for my requested 6-weeks. I had some say yes and then a day or two later change their mind and actually say that their place was unavailable now for my requested time. I suppose that is what happens when requesting to stay over Christmas somewhere. Luckily, I found a lovely room in a first floor artsy apartment with a Chilean woman where I can stay for the entirety of my remaining 6-weeks in the country. It is slightly more expensive than what I would have liked to spend on housing, but the place and the woman are both lovely so it works out fine.
The wifi here for the first few days was really bad and I ultimately just used my phone as a hotspot to do the few things on the Internet that I needed to do. Thankfully the other day someone came and serviced it and now it is working MUCH better, so hopefully my updates will come more regularly now.
Another plus of this AirBnB is its proximity to one Express Lider (a Walmart branch in Chile that is very prevalent) in particular. I would say that finding good gluten-free foods here has not been the easiest, especially after I was spoiled in New Zealand. The pickings are slim and in terms of GF alternatives of common products, I've been limited to crackers and pasta mostly. But, this Express Lider is a celiac's oasis in Santiago! I went to buy my normal staples here, but found GF lemon pound cake, cookies, granola, protein bars, baking mixes, bread that looked like it had more integrity than sand (which was the consistency of the first load I tried here), and much more. I'm very pleased about this!
Working with the Fundación para la Infancia Ronald McDonald Chile
Now that I am a pro at Spanish, I have officially begun my project work in Chile, working along the Fundación para la Infancia Ronald McDonald Chile, the Chilean branch of the Ronald McDonald House Charity. I have only done two days with them so far, but I can tell that this partnership is going to be really meaningful and informative.
Here in Chile, they have one house for families in Valparaíso, six hospital family rooms in Santiago and Rancagua, and a mobile pediatric unit. Throughout my time with the organization, I will get to spend my days in the family rooms and the various teams, helping out, talking with families, collaborating on projects, and more. Plus, we are arranging for me to spend the night at the house in Valparaíso over Christmas Eve and Christmas to join in on the festivities there with the families.
Planning What's Next
While in Chile, I didn't want to repeat what I did in New Zealand and spend my whole time working and waiting until the very last moment to think about any exploration to do in the country. Since I will be here for my birthday, I figured it was as good an excuse as any to take a little long-weekend trip to visit Atacama. Plus, I found a great deal on a pack of tours and cheap flights to get me there and back. I'm super excited for this trip and I can't wait to share an update with tons of pictures when I am 23 :)
Plus, I also booked my flight to the next leg of my journey. Which, isn't Senegal!! Flights from Santiago to Dakar take a wild route and are VERY expensive, it turns out. I didn't factor that into my planning since I was originally planning to go to El Salvador and not Chile. But, I discovered that flying from Santiago to Madrid and then to Dakar is a much cheaper flight path, especially if those flights are spread out by a few days. So, it is official that I will ringing in the New Year in Madrid!
Advice Wanted: Journaling
My time here in Chile has already been so different from the months I spent in New Zealand. I am starting to gain clarity on the experiences I had in New Zealand and can put them into a broader cultural context by being able to compare it to a different country. The travel experience is also wildly different, from what I am eating to what I do on the weekends and evenings, or from the types of places I am living to my confidence and comfort navigating and existing in new places and spaces.
One thing has been constant though from the final month of my time in New Zealand through to now: I have had no desire to journal. I am now actively seeking some reassurance that it is okay to have gone about a month without writing anything in my journal and that does not make me a bad world traveler. Plus I would like some gentle encouragement (and tips?) to get me back into it and make it feel like a more manageable/meaningful component of my Watson year.
Thank you in advance :)
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