First week in Chile!

Hi friends,

Today marks my first full week in Chile, so I decided it was time to start a blog! I am currently in the city of Concepción, where I will be living for the next five months (one semester) to study at the University of Concepción. Concepción, or “Conce” for short, is one of the largest cities in Chile. It sits on the coast about six hours south of Santiago and Valparaíso. It is currently the end of winter here, which means it rains a fair amount and temperatures are mostly in the 50s, if my internal thermometer serves me well. My experiences here have been excellent so far. I am so lucky to be in Conce, living where I’m living and spending each day doing something completely new.

My living situation here is really great. I am staying in a “pension,” which is basically a house where students live, sometimes with a family and sometimes without. The woman who runs my pension is named Marta, and the first night I arrived, she was telling me how she wants her house to really be a home for the students who live here. Her hopes seem to have materialized; especially because we eat our meals together, living here is like living with a really big family. There are eleven people in total in the house: Marta, two of her daughters (Ale is 16, Irina is 11), three girls from Mexico, three guys from assorted regions of Chile, a girl who is in high school, and me. There is also a dog named Sofia, who “guards” the house (i.e. she lives outside). The picture above is the view out my bedroom window!

My pension is only a block and a half from the University, which is very convenient, especially in light of the in-person nature of class registration. To register for classes, there is no online system like at Middlebury; instead, I had to meet with the director of international relations and his assistant, who set up meetings with the department heads in all departments where I was considering taking classes. After attending these meetings, I have been trying to attend classes and/or meet the class professors in their offices. Once I’ve gone to classes and talked to professors, I will need to find Liliana (of an unknown last name), who works in a building (of an unknown location) to register my class choices. I am making progress with all this: this morning I went to my first class! I also had my first experience with the workings of “Chilean time”—I arrived early so I could talk to the professor, and no other students showed up until twenty minutes after class was scheduled to begin! Obviously, life here is quite laid-back. It makes for a nice transition from summer to school.

In addition to enrolling in University classes with Chilean students, another aspect of the Middlebury program is the opportunity to have an “internship” for academic credit in an institution here. I will be spending 10-15 hours per week at a health clinic, the Consultorio Villa Nonguén, which is about a twenty-minute bus ride from the University. A few mornings ago, Jeff (Stevenson, the director of the Middlebury program in Chile) came to my pension so that we could go together to my first meeting at the Consultorio. Because Jeff was there, we were going to take a speedier and nicer method of transportation than the city bus: a taxi. Finding a taxi is usually not difficult; however, it happened to be raining. A lot. The streets were like rapid-filled rivers gushing between the sidewalks (and sometimes onto the sidewalks as well). I have never seen so much water in the streets before! Because of this, finding a taxi was quite the adventure. We searched for the driest ways possible to cross the water-laden streets as we pressed onward towards the Plaza Peru, and eventually accomplished our mission, although we arrived for our appointment a good half-hour late, completamente empapados (completely soaked). The doctor in charge of the clinic was very accommodating, and we sat with him for awhile and drank coffee as we discussed the clinic. I am going back tomorrow to set up my schedule, but this time I’m taking a micro (bus) to get there…another type of adventure? Perhaps.

Meals here are different from the types of meals I am used to. We have a “desayuno” (breakfast) of bread with jam and manjar (dulce de leche/ softened caramel), fruit (mostly kiwi), instant coffee or tea, etc. “Almuerzo” (lunch) is the biggest meal of the day, with salad, orange juice (very similar to Tang), and some sort of main course. At night, we have “onces” which is like another breakfast, but sometimes with eggs, ham, or cheese, or we have a “cena” (dinner), which is a more complete meal. A few nights ago we ate onces and then we had a special cena at midnight—an asado (like a Chilean BBQ)! It was very strange to be eating a meal of (literally) meat and potatoes at midnight, but I’m slowly getting used to the change…

Now for two things that Chilean and American culture have in common:
1. Chileans knock on wood!
2. If Chilean children say bad words, they get soap in their mouths too.

And finally,

¡Que este mensaje se encuentre bien!
(Translation: That this message finds all of you well!)

Love from Chile,

Tiernan