Alrighty, I know I said in my last post that I was going to write about night-life and I had a post almost finished and then my computer got stolen…yeah…awesome. So I don’t really feel like writing it all over again and getting mad remembering about the computer-stealing fiasco! Therefore, I’m gonna write about Chilean culture…it won’t be a textbook promise 🙂 After living here for a month I’m certainly not an expert, but there are some really obvious cultural differences here, and most of them are pretty funny! So here we go:

1. Greetings (Saludos)

In the U.S. if you’re going to say hi to someone or a group, you wave at everyone as you walk by, handshake if it’s more formal or hug if you’re friends, right? Well here, to say hello you say “Hola” and then press your cheek to the other person’s cheek and kiss the air (or if you’re a teenage boy, you not so discreetly plant a kiss right on my cheek…nice). This happens between men and women and between women, men just shake hands, and you add a hug into the mix if you’re good friends. To say goodbye is the same thing, but you say “Chao” and kind of feel like you’re Italian. (They look at you funny if you say “Adios” too!) The thing that cracks me up is that you MUST greet and say goodbye to every single person individually. My favorite example of this is in youth group, when I enter the room and have to go around and kiss 50 Chileans on the cheek…and if I miss one they point it out and I’m automatically super rude! I’m really bad with remembering this when I say goodbye to groups of people, I’ll just say “Chao!” wave and start to walk off, and then realize how rude I’m being!

2. Chilenismos!

Chileans love to joke that they don’t speak Spanish, they speak Chilean. I didn’t know this before I came here, but it turns out that Chile has a reputation for REALLY difficult to understand Spanish…and I can now verify that reputation whole-heartedly!  The first thing that makes speaking “Chilean” so difficult is that they speak incredibly fast! Native Spanish-speakers in general seem to speak really quickly to me, but Chileans talk fast even for native speakers, it’s insane! Chileans also love to use slang, so they have tons of words that don’t make sense anywhere but Chile. Here’s a few of my favorites:

Poh: Chileans add the sound “poh” onto any word they please. It’s most common with “si”, so a lot of times Chileans respond with “sipo!” to questions. I’ve found that in conversations between friends or with some kind of passionate topic/emotion, they start slipping poh into at least one word every sentence, it can make things really hard to follow at first! But I love trying to use it now, and it cracks them up when I do, they love that I’m becoming a chilena J

Bakán: this is kind of like “awesome”, they use it to describe anything that was cool or fun or interesting, que bakán, no?!

Pololo/polola: this means novio/novia (boyfriend/girlfriend), but it also signifies that the relationship is quite serious, if I’m understanding correctly. Try saying it, it’s such a funny word! Oh, and “pololear” means “to date”.

Fume: BORING!

Cachai/cache: Cachai is used in place of “entiendes?” (you understand?). I need to take a video of someone saying it, it’s a word with bounce and force, I love it! And if you understand you respond with “cache!”. Chileans slip “cachai” on the end of tons of sentences, speeches are littered with it! Cachai?

Wena choro/pollo!: This is a greeting between friends, choro is a chilenismo for “amigo” (friend). Pollo literally means “chicken”, but calling someone a pollo is like calling them stupid. But Chileans love insulting their friends, it’s honestly like you’re real friends once you start trading insults all the time, I almost feel good once I’m in insult battles b/c I know I’m in, ha! But don’t say “wena pollo” to someone who isn’t a friend, they’ll get mad! But between friends it’ll always get a laugh 🙂

3. PDA!

WOW. This was definitely the most evident cultural difference right away. CHILEANS LOVE PDA! SO MUCH! My first night in Chile we went to a restaurant and I looked over at the table next to me, only to find a couple making-out (and it was riding the PG/PG-13 line)! I let out a little gasp and my friend Susana looked over to ask what was wrong, so I nodded my head over at the couple…and she looked so confused! I tried to explain that this level of PDA was not normal in the U.S., especially not in a nice restaurant, and she couldn’t understand it! In her words, “Anna, love is beautiful, why hide it?!”…so there you have it, the Chilean belief that fuels their PDA J But be warned, if you’re walking around Valparaíso, you will find couples making out on almost every park bench, at the traffic light waiting to cross the street, in front of you in line, everywhere! They even do it when out with other people! Just last night I was out with some friends at a bar, two of whom are dating, and they just started kissing, during a conversation, with people sitting on either side of them…and everyone continues on as if nothing is happening! They might tease them a bit, but no one is uncomfortable! Except me! I’ll admit, I’m not surprised at the PDA because Chileans are so comfortable with touch in general. Friends hug and touch all the time here, personal bubbles are very small or non-existent! Oh, PDA, gotta love it 😉

4. Super Talkative and Friendly!

Chileans are very, very friendly, which I love, it’s really helpful when you’re a stranger in a foreign country! Living in the YMCA there are always tons of people around and it’s quite normal for a stranger to strike up a conversation with me while I’m on my laptop, walking up the stairs, sitting in the kitchen or even when I’m getting dressed in the locker room or taking a shower (still not used to that whole stranger shower conversation thing…)! I think this may happen more often because I’m a gringa, and this tends to fascinate people (also, I so easily stick out, I’m so white, ah! I need to be home and able to tan!), but I’ve also seen this happen a lot between Chileans, as a whole they’re just much more comfortable and laid back with touch and meeting new people. Chileans keep the conversation going for a long time too, when you sit down for a meal I’ve learned that you need to be prepared to sit for a good hour once everyone is done eating in order to just sit and talk and laugh. I love that, it works well for a talkative extrovert like me

5. Aggressively Kind

This is a term that Erica and I decided on to describe how Chileans treat us, and each other. Chileans are hospitable almost to a fault. When you’re invited over to someone’s house they will ask you what you want to drink and if you want more or something they don’t have at least 10 times and keep insisting that you eat more and won’t let you help prepare or serve or clean anything at all! It’s very sweet, you feel like a queen J It’s hard to explain the aggressive part, but the best way I can think to describe it is that Chileans are very sure that they know what is best for you and will not take no for an answer! So if they think it’s too cold outside and you need more clothes, nothing is happening until you put more clothes on! With food, I get second helpings or they at the least look very confused and disappointed if I repeatedly refuse something…or just give me another drink anyways J When I was sick and they decided I needed bedrest, then there was NO leaving the Y, no matter what I said! And if you say “no” to anything, they rarely take it seriously, I think they think you’re kidding…ah, I hope this makes sense, it can be both really wonderful (the kindness) and really frustrating (the aggressive-ness)!

Ok, there’s lots more to say, but this is really long already, so I’ll have Chilean culture part 2 later! As for life here, things are good! I love teaching my classes, singing with the kids and getting cooking lessons in the soup kitchen , and I never run out of places to explore here…life is good 🙂 I taught the third graders for an hour and a half all by myself today (that was one of the most obvious indicators I’ve had at how much my Spanish is improving, YAY!) and it was so much fun! I taught them “This is the Day” in Spanish and English and motions to go along with it, and then we made clay models of the beautiful things that the Lord has made, like we were singing about…so much fun 🙂 I have some pictures, I’ll put them in soon! Off to a concert now, besos!

Hey all,

So let me tell you what it’s like to be sick in a foreign country. NOT FUN. Turns out, even Chile can’t make having bronchitis any less sucky, but if I’m gonna blog about my experiences here, I guess I should tell about the good and the bad, plus you can learn from my mistakes!

Last Saturday I started having a sore, scratchy throat, which is a BAD sign with me. This usually means that I’m getting a cold, but it’s frustrating because I don’t really feel sick, so it’s very hard for me to rest! I usually end up still going out and going about my life busy as ever, and then pay for it when 2 or 3 days later I wake up during the night with a stuffed nose, cough and full head……..and was it any different this time? NOPE. Smart one Anna….but who can rest when there’s so much to do and explore here?!?!

Anyhoo, Tuesday night was awful, I could tell I definitely had a cold, and it was supposed to be our first day of work Wednesday morning! You may be thinking, “Lucky you, you get out of work!” but I was really excited to finally get started. Don’t get me wrong, these last two weeks have been awesome, I feel like I’m on vacation and am loving my time here! But I’m also really ready to have some purpose to my days. And the Chilenos are oh so chill about us getting started. That part of the culture here has been difficult to adjust to. I’m a planner and I like to be busy. The Chilean pace of life is much more relaxed (they aren’t lazy, I don’t like that stereotype, it’s just a different pace/mentality to things…honestly probably healthier than the breakneck American pace!) and they are very go-with-the-flow. I learned quickly that if I asked what we were going to be doing in the future I was told “tranquila, calma, espera, no sé!” (chill out, calm down, wait and see, I don’t know!). Valparaíso is beautiful and there are always new places to explore, but the whole group is getting a little weary of walking around day after day, and is feeling ready to have a more independent schedule and accomplish something. So it was very disappointing to me that I had to get sick at this time (though to be honest, being sick anytime during this trip would be disappointing!)

On Wednesday Erica got up early, I told her I felt awful and really hot and according to her, my forehead was feeling pretty feverish. So I spent my first day of work in bed, not teaching and playing with kiddies, que triste L But I was hopeful that with lots of Dayquil and rest, I would be good to go for Thursday! However, Wednesday night it was clear that my body was not listening to my plans, and was still quite sick. So Thursday turned into the second day of rest. And I was feeling better! So I did what Anna Wiersma does best: leap up and start doing things as soon as I have the energy…….I’m really terrible at resting, it’s a problem. So I went grocery shopping. And was absolutely exhausted afterwards. So I rested (good job, me!). But then a friend came by and surprised me, so I convinced myself that walking a block for empanadas wouldn’t kill me. But afterwards, I felt AWFUL. I had been so hungry, which was good because I hadn’t had much of an appetite the past few days, but now I felt like I was gonna throw-up. I went back to my room and was freezing, but 5 minutes later I’d be burning up. At the same time I’d be ravenous, start eating something, and then feel naseous….and all the while my chest was feeling very heavy and it was hard work to take deep breaths…..it was scary! Erica came back up to the room after the meeting I was supposed to be at was finished, took one look at me and told me I looked like a ghost. Cue the tears.

If I was home, I don’t think this would have been so scary. But being in a foreign country you can’t help but wonder: what if I got a parasite or something? What if I’m really sick? What’s happening to me?! And there isn’t anyone familiar there who really knows you, so you feel even more alone in all of this! Therefore, when Juanma and Susana wanted to take me to the ER to see a doctor that night, I was all for it. I just wanted to know what the heck was wrong with me! And navigating a hospital in Spanish, phew, that’s a whole other adventure. Thank goodness Susana and Juanma were with me, trying to comprehend Spanish while you are feverish is no piece of cake. But it was just me and Erica in the examination room, and it took me about 2 minutes to figure out that the doctor was asking me to cough for him, that was a lovely game of charades we played 😉 But he did offer to write me a note to get out of school and/or work at the end, so that made up for it, ha. And I have (drumroll please….) BRONCHITIS! Yay! (sarcasm, lots of it)

It feels good to know what’s going on. And to have 3 strong medications working for me, I do feel a lot better today. I’m just SO tired. All the time. And that’s difficult for me. My time here is already going so quickly and it kills me to have to spend a precious weekend in Chile sitting in my room, resting! But I’ve been given very strict bedrest orders, Juanma says he’ll have the security guard tattle on me if I try to escape the Y (I think they’re getting that I suck at resting, ha ;D). And it’s hard to be away from my family while I’m sick. I don’t even like being sick while I’m away at college, you just want your mom to make you soup and baby you a little, right?! But I’ve been very blessed by the care that I’ve received here. Erica is wonderful. It’s crazy to think that I barely spoke to her in Valpo, and that last night she was making me tea, sitting with me while I cried, insisted on going with me to the hospital and is always checking in to see how I’m doing. Juanma has a family, but never complained about coming at 9:30 to take me the the ER and kept me laughing during our long wait. Susana let me cry and then turned around and kept me laughing the whole night, with lots of hugs thrown in for good measure, and again never complained that her night was spent in the ER. Jorge came by to bring me movies to keep me entertained during my bedrest sentence and the staff at the Y keeps checking in on me and asking if they can make me anything. I feel so blessed by all of these things, and am trying to focus on them when I get really angry and crabby at my situation!

So my advice would be this, if you ever go abroad

1. If you feel run-down or like you might be getting sick, REST! Try to prevent it! Everyone has told me it’s pretty common to get sick the second week or so, your body is adjusting to a lot of new things, plus the switch to winter weather has been a bit rough! It was really nice weather at first, but Tues-Thurs was really cold all of a sudden, and you don’t get a break from it, because none of the buildings we’re working in, or the Y, have heat! So my body has to work hard to keep me warm all day.
2. That brings me to my second piece of advice: bring LAYERS! Being warm is better than looking good! I’m just wearing my black fleece and a new scarf with it each day so I don’t look so drab, ha J
3. Make an account of your symptoms in the days leading up to your doctor visit before you go. Erica did that for me, and it was really helpful, because we could look up the words we didn’t know before we had to try and explain things to the doctor! Kudos Erica J

Keep your fingers crossed for me that I get better soon, I want to be able to work on Monday!! I’ll be teaching my first english class (fingers crossed!) Besos!

Hola!

My home, the YMCA!

Wow, I have so much to tell! It’s been a jam-packed past few days, and I’m finding it really difficult to put my experiences into words, it’s definitely been a whirlwind and I wish I could tell about every little thing that I’ve experienced! But I was thinking that I should probably give some background to the YMCA and the actual city of Valparaíso before I start telling all my stories! I know that I didn’t know that much about this city before I came here, and I only know about Chile because a big part of my major is studying the culture and history of Latin American countries! So here is my mini introduction.

Before I came, I just thought it was funny that Valpo would have an exchange program with a city in Chile with the same name, and that was really all that I knew about Valparaíso besides that it was by the sea. But this is a main city in Chile, the third largest actually! I was really surprised on the plane when I was reading the guidebook that I’d bought (and saved for the plane, because I was too busy to read it beforehand, ha) listed Valparaíso as a place that you MUST visit in Chile and one of the most beautiful cities in Chile. Que buena suerte para mi! (What good luck!)

La playa 🙂 Simply gorgeous

And the guidebook certainly wasn’t exaggerating. WOW. Valparaíso for me is kind like the Chilean version of Chicago because it has a main, crazy busy city surrounded by hills that are filled with houses, like the suburbs of Chicago. The actual city of Valparaíso certainly isn’t as big as Chicago, but its big! The YMCA is right in the heart of the city. Looking at pictures of groups in years past, for some reason I thought that the YMCA was really small and that social programs were its main focus, but I was greatly mistaken! This place is huge, and has a million different things going on at every moment! One of the things I really enjoy about Valparaíso is that there’s an interesting mix of very modern things and very old-fashioned, and the YMCA is a great example of that. The first floor is like the lobby of any business in the U.S., and it has great wi-fi which makes me very happy! The 2^nd-4^th floors are filled with gyms, and classrooms for all the different classes that go on here: spinning, aerobics, dancing, and I swear that every single class has BLARING techno music that goes with it, especially in the afternoons! (This was not a grand beginning to my stay here, we were exhausted after the flights and tried to take a nap in the afternoon with this music blaring…not highly successful. I felt like the music was describing how I was feeling at the moment, my head spinning with lack of sleep and all the new things that I was experiencing, yikes!). There is also a youth gathering room for all the youth programs that go on here.

The main city, and in the distance you can see the hills that surround everything. It's so beautiful!

I live on the fifth floor, and there are at least 10 rooms up there that people can rent out to live in. Erica and I share a room, but there are 6 bunk beds in the room, so we have lots of space to spread out J The only sad thing is that our room is directly above the basketball gym, and people like to play until 11 when the Y closes and right when the Y opens…also, our neighbors are obsessed with watching movies until 1 in the morning…I’m becoming an expert at sleeping through anything! Oh, and also, I got all set up on my bunkbed only to find out that  I choose the one that squeaks and wobbles when you move..but I’m to lazy to move all my stuff! We have a kitchen that all the residents of the Y share, and cooked for the first time yesterday. The kitchen is not very modern, no dishwasher or microwave and using a gas stove and oven was quite the experience, I’m still not very used to it! Also, probably burned my finger lighting the stove. Points for me 😉 We use the women’s locker room for our bathrooms, and the best part about that is COMMUNAL SHOWERS, woo! I’ve been really lucky so far, the Y is much more packed during the afternoon and night than the early morning, so its only been me and Erica braving the experience. But it’s only a matter of time…yikes. We also have a little laundry room, which Erica and I tried out yesterday. Disaster. First disaster was a display of my lack of what I like to call “life smarts”. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me where to put the detergent. Did I do it right? Probably not. Then, trying to figure out how to program that thing in Spanish was another good 10 minutes. Did I do it right? Eh, it started spinning and filling with water, so that was good by me. I thought that everything was fine when I started the dryer, but I came back an hour later to find my clothes still soaking. 2 hours later? Wet. 2 hours later? THROWN ON THE LAUNDRY ROOM FLOOR IN A PILE! AND STILL WET! Poor Erica’s clothes were thrown out of the washer and soaking, pobrecita! (poor thing!). So our room has clothes hanging from every possible spot….and they are not drying fast, let me tell you.

Trying to dry my clothes after the laundry fiasco :/

Ok, well I guess this turned into more of a tour of the Y instead of Valpo, but I’ll do that next, it’s gonna need a few posts, because we’ve toured a lot of places already! But I did put my pictures on Picasa and Facebook as well, so you should check those out! Besides the fitness programs, the Y sponsors a lot of social programs and youth programs and that is what I am going to be working in. We tour all of the programs tomorrow and Wednesday and then start working on Thursday, so I’ll tell you about those later in the week! Chao! Besos! (Kisses! A common way to say goodbye between friends in Chile :D)