And What, Emily, Do You Have to Say About Your First Month Here?

Mamá asked me this about thirty minutes ago. My response: "Que Chile es el mejor pais en total el mundo? Obvio!"

Well, in about ten hours, I'll have a month here. It doesn't feel like that. I need to stop counting days, because my time passes way way too fast. If I've ever dreaded anything before, it's nothing compared to the feeling I have in anticipation of my departure. I don't want to dwell on the subject. Moving on!

Mi hermanita and I are watching Camp Rock, which secretly makes me want to cry but is very popular here so I can't say that. We just got cable in the house, so it's a pretty big deal that we can actually watch something other than the five basic channels here.

It's hard to think of things to say on my blog! I've become so ingratiated with my family and friends that nothing really strikes me as new any more. Not to say that nothing's exciting or fabulous, because I still love the ride to school at dawn watching the mountains and the fog... I still love walking around the city during out 1.5 hour lunch... I still love kisses on cheeks and playing guitar between classes. But it's not like it used to be, where I had lists of things to mention here.

I guess I can say a few things. Today, the whole family congregated at my house to eat gnocci (homemade by my Italian AFS cousin Pipi) and it was pretty much a blast and very delicious. My primita (cousin-ita) Kony is adorable... My buddy. We pinchamos (Chileans have a funny habit of calling you and hanging up before you can pick up - this is called a pincha and it's super common because it's cheap. I get pincha'd about 10 times a day...) in school when we're bored and call each other "mi amor."

I'm going to explain cellphones here. They're all prepaid, and you can buy from three different companies (Claro, Movistar, and EntelPCS which is Sprint). My family has Entel, which is the least common. Texting is cheaper than calling, and pinchando is cheaper than texting. Chileans never have enough dinero in their cellphones, so they pincha when they want to acknowledge a text or just make you think of them. Pinchas can indicate a crush, friendship, etc.

Lately... I've been helping out with the English Debate team at school a lot. We won "regionals" on Wednesday and we're going to nationals representing the whole 6th region of Chile in Santiago in October! I'm super pumped. My boyfriend, Pedro, is on the English debate team. I know how curious you all are about Pedro, because in every email/Facebook message there's mention of "the boyfriend" lately. Pedro... Very Chilean looking, speaks excellent English (on that: I speak Spanish to him and he English to me and we correct each other... Although often he speaks Spanish. His is very rapid and hard for me to understand, which can be frustrating, but it's good practice.), can't swim, loves Pink Floyd, and is easily the most intelligent person at the school. Like most Chileans, has the characteristic unibrow, but hey, you gotta get used to these things. He's adorable. Mom, you would love him. Very sweet and polite.

Hm, what else.

I've figured out the internet-at-school thing, so I have a lot more frequent access to Facebook/email now.

I really really miss Mexican food.

My back is seriously killing me at all times.

I love being the "Gringa Linda" here. Because of my blonde hair and green eyes, I have a lot of admirers. A lot... like the entire school. When I walk down the street people stare. I'm not looking forward to going home and being normal again!

My Spanish has improved a ton and my English devolved.

Ohhh I don't know what else. It's so tough deciding what's important and what's not.

As an exchange student, I get to opt out of two classes (I wanted to chose PE...). For me, quimica (chemistry) and filosofia (basically psychology) which I normally would really like but the teacher is a zombie and that's one of two classes where everyone's too scared to have fun. I have to emphasize the differences in education here... In math on Friday we started learning how to solve a basic equation with a > like 3x+4>x-1... The teacher stared when I finished the eleven problems like someone who... knows the material... But other than that kind of thing, I've realized that Chileans can find a million excuses not to work. Nothing ever ever ever gets done in class. Talk about awesome!

Did I meantion that I've been teaching curse words? Or namely, one in particular. Pigeon. I have half my class thinking pigeon is an equivalent to shit. Is this malicious? No, it's not. It's hilarious.

I watched Futurama today with Spanish voice-overs. That was weird. OH, The Simpsons. That's important. Chileans LOVE Los Simpsons. They watch it constantly! It's voiced over, like the majority of Chilean TV, and at first was annoying as heck for me, but now that I understand Spanish a little more, I enjoy the hours on end spent watching, talking about, and comparing people to the Simpsons. I, apparently, am like Lisa. I'm smart and have blonde hair. Naturally, the first similar person who comes to mind... Haha.

Internet cafés here are harder to find than I thought they would be. Because what I want is wireless internet, and it's easy to get a computer with internet but hard to get WiFi. So it's become more common for me to go to Rigoletti's after school with my laptop and a friend. Rigoletti's is the main restaurant in San Fernando. It has internet, helado (icecream), a cafe, a restaurant, a patio, clean bathrooms (with toilet paper!!!!!), and innumerable patrons. I like going after school because the internet's fairly fast... But I can't go alone because I get nagged constantly by the boys about how dangerous the city is. I believe this less and less with every day (Pipi goes everywhere alone and is fine) but I don't mind a bit taking Pedro along and Alex (other AFSer) isn't too bad either.

AH, in the middle of SF there are two plazas, one bigger than the other. Both have lots of grass and benches and are popular after school hang outs for the more punk-y crowd (I told the Miss Eva Maria I was going there after school Friday meaning I was going downtown and she looked shocked)... There are two secret things in the larger of the two which has a grand fountain (the other a statue). One is a marker that has to do with Greenwich Mean Time and the other is a valve that controls the fountain. I'm dying to turn this valve! But also very scared of getting in trouble. Some day, some day.

In Chile, when you refer to someone you say "la Maka" or "el Pedro" which is basically saying "the Maka o the Pedro..." It's going to be a pain getting rid of this habit when I go home because it's been sneaking into my English...

I don't know what else.

I love having a fireplace in the house: There's constantly a fire going and it's the center of activity. It's good for: recycling paper, warming your bottom, creating conversation ("How do you say chimney again?")

I've gotten used to the question mark being switched with the dash and Ñ being next to L and now on my laptop I have to search to use ñ and ?...

Pedro gave me a "Mi Primer Dicionario" and I've been reading it in my class Lenguaje... It makes me giggle. I can't understand half of it, although it's completely illustrated. He also gave me a childrens book about the talking writing implements that live on the author's desk... I need the third gift, a well-used pocket dictionary, to decipher the Spanish that takes me ten minutes to read a page...

I forget to mention the dogs, Bull and Max. They live outside. When we get out of the car, they attack us and Poncho says in a kid voice, "Hola Señor Maaaax, hola señor Buuuull." Bull's mouth likes my feet in the morning. It's really hard to walk out of a house to board a bus in the morning when your foot is stuck in the mouth of a hulking, drooling beast. I'm getting calf-muscle from wrestling with him.

Hmm...

I love mi mamá

I love mi papá

I love mi Makita

I love mi Ponchito

I love mi Pedro

I love mi Primita Kony

I love Bull and Max

I love CHILE

I don't want to go home!!

Figured That One Out: Yo TAMPOCO.

So yeah, tan poco means exactly what it´s supposed to, "so little." The word for me neither is TAMPOCO. Pffew. A mystery solved.

So here´s the update of the week! It's been a crazy time these last few days and I can´t remember if my last update was this Thursday or the last one, so I apologize for that. Here we go...

I´m starting to forget English words... I can definitely still converse with people in English but when I´m helping to compañeros to translate words over about an 11th grade vocabulary level I find that I just can´t remember them. I have to say this is a little infuriating at times; I´ve been helping my friends with the English Debate to write their arguments and my vocabulary constantly evades me.

Something I find amusing is the amount of English music my friends know. A few can sing, perfectly, whole songs that I don´t even know the words to. And they understand them! I´m constantly being asked to explain phrases in songs... High and dry was one... Once upon a time was tough...

I started talking about this last week a little, but the due to the deterioration of my English it looked a little stupid. Forget paragraphs! Here´s what´s happened recently:
Last weekend: My welcome fiesta. Awesome! Small party but still lots of dancing and good food. Mis compañeros pitched in to buy me a gift: A fancy sketchbook with a nice set of pencils (though they neglected to inclode an eraser... "Gomas" are really hard for me to find here...)
Wednesday: Alex´s 18th birthday party... Smaller than the other fiestas but still fun. So tired Thursday!
Last night: Even smaller fiesta (described as a "fiesta que no es una fiesta"), best of all of them because I went with... dun dun dun... Mi pololo, Pedro. (Note that pololo is boyfriend, w00t w00t)
Today: Sat around alone at home, bored, because my parents had work (due to a teacher strike a few months back some schools are now open on some Saturdays)...

Well that´s all for now!
Ciao!
Emily

Yo Tan Poco

Yo tan poco means ¨me neither¨ and I don´t understand why.

Hola!
Short update:

It´s Sunday and I´m at mi abuelita´s house yet again. Sunday is serious family-visiting day here. Everyone comes to la abuelita´s house for lunch and to hang out... There are too many people here right now!

Yesterday my papá´s whole family (including my immediate family and me!) took a bus to go visit his sister. She´s a nun in the city of Los Andes and yesterday was her 25th anniversary in... nunnery? It was a four hour drive there and back... The whole family rented a big bus and left San Fernando at about 7 AM. There was a big fiesta at the nunnery and the adjacent school in celebration. We all attended mass at a small church on the grounds where Tía gave a speech and everyone cried... It was very sweet. On the way back, at night, it snowed! Only about 2 hours south of my house. It was -5ºC. Ouch.

A little bit about school... It´s completely different here and I don´t think I´ve explained it yet. First of all, there are three levels. Basico (elem. and middle school, approximately), Medio (high school but two years later) and Alto, or university. I´m in 3º Medio which is the equivalent of Junior year in hs... However, the kids here go to school for two years longer than we do in the states, the result of which is there are a lot of (what look like to me) college-age kids at mi colegio.
In the schools, there can be different classes within the grades, I´m in 3ºC of A, B, C, and D. Each class has its own room and the teachers circulate between classrooms and grades. We have a ten minute break between each class and an hour and a half for lunch. Besides the structural differences, though, everything is wildly new.
The students don´t listen to the teachers at all, and in one class (one hour), it´s possibly for nothing to get done at all. Tests are routinely pushed up a week or two, my classmates text and make phone calls in class, and there´s almost no homework. Despite this, they often call the teachers Tío or Tía and everyone is on very good terms. It´s like being in elementary school again.
--On a side note, I recieved my first grade here! It was on a math test (they´re learning trigonometry) and I got a 6.3 out of 7. which is very good! 4 here is passing and 7 is nearly impossible. Yay for math!

What else? I´m getting used to the @ and ? being in different places on the keyboard...
I´ve been to two fiestas, one more harmless than the other but both wildly fun...
I´m helping some classmates prepare for a big English debate that´s coming up... Also still learning the Cueca and guitar...
I have a little crush on a Chilean boy... (It doesn´t hurt that they all have crushes on the gringa!)

No mucho más!
Everything´s still going great! It´s still freezing here but still beautiful - I still love the Andes more than anything...
I still don´t feel homesick (I can feel mom wincing...)

Anyhow, chao, cuidate!
Emily Emilia Marie Brown

Segunda Semana

Aye!
Chile is as lindo as ever, especially now as I learn more and more Spanish. I forget how long it´s been since I updated this blog, but to me it feels like no time at all. The days pass like a whirlwind. They told us when we arrived that we would be in love with everything and everyone for the first two months, so increíble y verdad!

I can´t count how many times I´ve confirmed that mis compañeros, mi familia, mi casa, etc son muy simpaticos... I´m known for saying two things: ¨todo esta perfecto!¨ y ¨no puedo comer mas! Porqué mi estomago es chiquito!¨

I realized today what Chiquita Banana means... And learned this week what nos vamos is, the basic steps to the cueca (the national dance), how to play cueca music on the guitar, how to play ¨Paint it Black¨ on the guitar, how to talk to someone who speaks no English, how to understand someone who wants to practice their English, tutor someone who diesn´t want to learn English, and so so so much more. I´m just never bored here. There´s so much to do and see and find out. After school every day I go exploring with Alex, another estudiante intercambio. Yesterday I got gellato and completos (enormous and well-filled hotdog type deals), found a lady who sells 7 spring rolls for 100 pesos (25 cents), and met Alex´s host mom and dad who run stores that sell knockoff name-brand shoes for 2.000 pesos (four dollars a pair). Not to mention all that I´ve done today...

Now I´m sitting en la casa de mi abuela, surrounded by half my family. Mi hermanita who is older than me but about 5 inches smaller and has toddler-sized hands and feet, whose boyfriend broke up with her two days ago, who fainted in school yesterday, who dances the cueca and squeals when we play rummy (I´m demonstrating the impossibility of describing a person I know so well that you don´t)... My cousin Connie, who loves anime and is my rolly-polly kissing huggy cousin.... In the back room are my abuela, who kisses for about 10 seconds with her little old-lady lips and says ¨Liiiinnda linda!!¨, mi mamá, who is serious and sweet and always busy, mi papá, who can´t win rummy, my brother (who can), my little cousin Carlitos, who is absolutely wild and too loud... And Saske, the kitty who has learned to sit on my shoulders and likes to hang out on top of the tree outside the house (The trees here have a huge thick trunk, are about five feet tall, and have a few tiny branched coming out of the tops since it´s winter... They´re ideal sitting-spots for cats since they´re dog-safe)...

We had onces about an hour ago, which consisted of tea (with a LIQUID synthetic sweetener which I´m infatuated with) and bread with a) egg and b) blackberry jam (asflkhlñll delicioso)... Not much is happening. I´d watch TV with everyone else but the TV here is ridiculous... It´s all dumb blonde girls in bikinis governing grease-sliding competitions (I kid you not).

Saturday I went to a fiesta! Mi primera! It started at 10 and I left around 130 while it was still booming. I tasted and didn´t like the alcoholic drink here, the name of which slips my mind... Lots of dancing, food, and a couple really drunk kids. Way more fun than parties in the States though!

Aiiiee the food here is really boring! Send me some hot sauce!

But I still love it! Perfecto, increíble, I love everything and everyone. Verdad, no miento.

Chao, nos vamos, cuidate mucho!
Emilia

PS
The best part of being here: Being known as the most beautiful girl in the school. Why? I´m blonde.
I´ve had several items given to me (hat, Vamos Chilenos bracelet, phone numbers...) , about five boys following me around, and twenty more watching my every move.
One of my more common phrases is, ¨Ahh, no quiero un pololo aqui!¨ (I don´t want a boyfriend here) and the response to the ineveitable WHY NOT???!, ¨demaciado difícil!
So tell gamommy not to worry about the little brown babies. Snarkfle.

El Colegio: Dos Días

There is so much to talk about, it´s very difficult. I´ll start with ahora, or now. At this moment I am sitting in the office of la escuela (school por chiquititos, little kids, in comparison to colegio por jovenes) de mi mamá. The keyboard is very different, so I aplogize for any mistakes. Also, I´m typing with gloves on. Si, hace mucho frío :(
Yesterday was my first day of school. Monday I went with mi mamá y tía y Monica de Italia to buy my uniform. I got a ton of clothes and a new pair of shoes for about $160 US... Muy bien! Here we wear a white blouse with a grey tie, a navy-blue V-neck sweater, blue pants or a skirt with grey tights, grey socks, black shoes, and a blue jacket. When we bought all this, we went to a medium sized store... Here everything is super different. Everything is sold in a way that makes it look cheap: I keep telling mi mamá that I love the colors here. Everything is very colorful. In the store, you´re waited on. The pants come without a hem so you can alter them at home (we took them to a lady in a shack/house around the corner) and everyone is very friendly. The cashier, who had helped to wait on us, gave me gloves for free (muchas gracias, Señora!) My jacket is huge and warm with fur around the hood. Yesterday it rained and when the hood got wet, it shed fur. :( Bienvenida a Chile! Haha.
At the school, there are three or four classes in each of the four grades. I´m in 3ºC. I have about 25 other jovenes in my class, all of whom wanted a kiss and introduction. I love the kissing here! So many boys to kiss the cheeks of! It´s very different and very wonderful. (although yesterday I missed and one boy got a peck on the lips AHH!!)
The English teacher at mi colegio is called Miss by all of the students, which is cute. She´s very nice and loves to speak English to me, which is SUPERBIEN. I´ve been helping her out with a debate in English in which her students participated today (we won!). There are two other estudiantes intercambios in the school from EE.UU. Erika Rabura, from Seattle, and Alex from New Orleans. Both are super nice and helpful. After schoool yesterday I went to a café with Alex and ate a Chilean sandwich. Everyone eats with forks and knives here, even things like >French Fries and sandwiches. They´re also extremely worried about me catching cold. I´m constantly being rebundled in scarves and jackets or force-fed food... Ehhhhhh
So everything´s been very eventful so far. I´m to learn the international dance of Chile, the Cueca, to dance on the 18 September, which is a day of much celebration. (already I´m forgetting my English; pardon...)
School ended yesterday at 5 and today at one. After, I can do what I want until 7 when the fuguron, or bus, comes; go out with Poncho o mis amigos or take clases like Cueca... Today I bought a cellular, a cellphone, then took the bus to the school where my mamá teaches. It´s an escuala rural, which I think is public, and obviously poor. But all of the children were very excited. I watched the Cueca competition with some little girls who fell in love with my blonde hair and accent... They showed me the whole school and made me kiss all the boys (who all wanted photos), and spoke slowly in short sentences (perfecto!)...
We take a private bus called a fuguron (sp?) to and from school. It´s small and it only takes kids whose parents pay for it, from what I gather. It´s operated by a man everyone calls tío, who always gets out to open the door for the chiquititas.
It´s hard to think of much more... Everyone loves the profesor de matematicas, who they all find very handsome. The clases are impossible to understand, but everyone is so so helpful and I understand far more than I did when I first arrived. I love it here. Sorry, Mom, but I´m not homesick at all. That may come later, but right now I´m just in love with everything and everyone. The Andes are incredible, the houses are colorful, the foliage is completely different and charming... Me gusta todos, todos, todos.

When I`m asked if I like Chile, I respond, ¨Sí, po! Me gusta mucho mucho mucho...¨

Anyway, chaoito!
Emilia (porque aqui no one can pronounce or spell Emily... Or Brown...)

Tambíen,
A few things about the language here:
when you´re talking to someone you´re friends with, you stick ¨ito¨ on the ends of words. Like Chaoito! Also, when you say a word like sí, no, or ya, if you REALLY mean it, you stick ¨po¨on the end. (Sí po!) Weon means stupid, don´t say punta... Etc etc etc.
Tambíeníen,
I absolutely cannot send post cards like I had hoped. It´s impossible to relay the idea of a postcard in the first place, and I just don´t ever have the opportunity. Lo siento!!

Yo Estoy Aqui!!!

I’ve arrived! Not only in Chile, but a la casa de mi familia. It’s been a long time waiting for this moment, from the second I said goodbye to my “familia en los estados,” as I often have to say here.

We stayed in a very nice hotel in Miami, but when you’re waiting, muy ansioso, in a hotel for two days with nothing to do, it’s terrible no matter what. In Miami were kids from all over the US going to only three countries: Chile, Brazil, and Paraguay. We all left on the same day, the 30th, in the afternoon and evening. Except for Tom Randolph, a super nice boy going to Chile with us (whose blog you should totally check out at tomrandolphafs.blogspot.com) - he got sick at the last minute and had to go to the ER. Assumedly he’ll be arriving soon, granted it’s not swine flu!! Swine flu is a big deal here. We were all given masks to wear on the plane in case we felt ill.

Our plane ride was very uneventful. 9 hours on a plane in the middle of the night is bound to be so. Nervous, hungry, bored and tired are no fun at all. But when we arrived in Santiago at 8 AM it was extremely satisfying. We exchanged our money in the aeropuerta (muy interesante!) and met up with the AFS volunteers. I got a “Coke Light” from the vending machine… They’re very different in shape than in the states and much much cheaper. I really want to put up a picture but my camera cord has disappeared, along with my super-nice ski jacket. :(

They took us to a monastery where we stayed for two nights. I hardly want to talk about it! Terrible food, tiny rooms, awful. But it was all preparing us for the morning our families would arrive for us…

The Arenas Riquelmes arrived in their car at about ten in the morning today, el 2 agosto. I got a little teary as I recognized mi hermana (I didn’t recognize the others… Eh he…). We got everything in the car and with the brother and sister of my mother (who were also picking up an AFSer from Italy), we drove home.

Everything is different here. The streets are almost all one way. When they’re not, people drive like locos. We drove about 110 km/hr the whole time, highway or no. Eek!!

We stopped at a rest stop (very similar to those in the states, but cleaner) and an empanada restaurant (almost like fast food empanadas) where the whole family piled out of both cars. The empanadas here are far more simple than the ones that mom makes at home. They are baked also, but with a great deal more dough of greater thickness. I asked mi hermanita to choose for me because I wanted to try everything. Turns out most have only mushrooms, chicken, and cheese or similar fillings.

As we drove (at breakneck speed) into San Fernando, the whole car was full of, “Emeely! San Fernando!” and pointing at every sign for a good ten minutes. I talked with Poncho (mi hermano) the whole time. He spoke to me in English and I spoke to him in very broken Spanish. I’m very glad that he’s here because when he’s not around I feel embarassed about not being able to hold a conversation. I’ve already learned a lot of Spanish with his help and that of my family. Anyway, off track! We drove into San Fernando on the “highway” of sorts. The part of town we drove through was all colorful shacks (which were abundant in Santiago also and very very cool) and stray dogs. They pointed out to me the police, the fire station, and the various markets on the main road. We drove out of San Fernando and down a big hill towards the mountains to get to the house. The whole time I’ve been here, the Andes have been absolutely phenomenal. You can see them from everywhere, snow capped and gigantic and breathtaking. We entered a tiny, run-down village with a few nice homes, exited off the main street, and to the house. There were horse-drawn carriages on the roads and gates or fences around every house. Also, every business and home has guard dogs, so there are dogs in every yard behind the fences.

But we arrived at the house with the cousins of mi familia and everyone met the abuelos and aunts and uncles and cousins (etc) at the house then went outside. We played ping-pong and soccer and so on before lunch. Lunch was plain meat, potatoes, and a salad of tomatoes, lettuce, and corn with lemon (although it all tastes very different from in los estados). The meat wasn’t my favorite - dry and boring; but I loved just being at the table with so many people in one family. We then played more until onces, for which we had a torte de caramel which was not very unusual. After this, the other members of the family all went home. So now it’s only me, mis padres, Poncho, y Alicia.

It’s impossible to explain everything in such a way that it can be understood. But I feel totally connected with mi familia ahora. Whether it’s because Alicia loved my stuffed animals, or Poncho can play rummy now, or that Papá thought the Maple Syrup was cologne, I feel warm and tickly inside. Mi mamá made me dry my hair and turn on the electric blanket so I won’t catch a cold. Everyone kisses here. It’s so friendly and perfecto. I couldn’t be happier.

Tomorrow yo voy a ir al office to get my visa validated and to the store for my school uniform and a jacket. I wish I were going to school tomorrow! But I’ll be going with mamá (who calls me hija, or daughter, aww), her sister, and their AFSer Monica. She and I will go to the same school but she’s a grade below me.

What else?

We have a part-time maid who cleans (vacuuming and such) and cooks meals…

My room is small and simple but very nice for me…

In the bathrooms you have to throw away toilet paper instead of flushing it…

They have (erm, can’t remember the word… ) butt washers… Um… in los baños… (What are they called???)

The girls here don’t shave, they all wax. Underarms too, ouch!! But apparently it’s cheap.

You don’t need a prescription for birth control! Not that I want it, ha, but it’s interesting.

The internet in the house is EXTREMELY slow, so I can’t do Facebook hardly at all. I have it whenever on my laptop, but it’s ridiculously lento.

Instead of the ending “as” for informal verbs, in Chile it’s “ai…” So it’s “como estai?” to a kid…

I have un primo, a cousin, who’s six and says hier for mañana and mañana for hier on purpose and loves to play ping-pong…

I can’t get a hold of postcards anywhere…

The internet is all in Spanish for some reason, even on my bookmarked sites on my computer…

No one drinks water or milk at meals; either juice or regular coke. Or wine, for the adults.

I’m taller than practically everyone (I know, what??)

Well, I think that’s all for now…. I’m super tired. Yo estoy muy cansiado.

Chao, chao, te amo muchas!!

Emily